List members,

If you get an e-mail regarding the President or the FBI, delete it
immediately.  This is a virus currently going around.  The e-mail will have
an attachment which is a VBS file.  This is a Visual Basic Script.  The
virus is pretty much the same as the Love Virus that went around several
months ago.

Protecting yourself:

Unfortunately, virus checking software does poorly with VB script files.
If you run one of the flavors of windows then you can disable scripting in
your machine.  As this may make tasks such as web surfing next to
impossible, you may find it inconvenient at best.  Probably the best thing
to do is to never, ever run a script file from your mailer software.  The
extension of a script file will be "vbs", but the file may be disguised as,
say, "mypicture.jpg.vbs".  Before you assume that an attachment is a benign
file, check the properties of the file.  If it is a script, then delete it
and the message immediately.

If your mailer has a preview function, you would do well to turn it off.
Some mailer preview software will execute a script in generating the preview.

Good luck.  We now return you to your normal caveperson viewing.

James at Penn State (aka Virus Central)


James Alpigini, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Systems Engineering
Penn State Great Valley School of Graduate Professional Studies
30 E. Swedesford Road, Malvern, PA 19355-1443
Phone: 610-648-3357; e-mail: [log in to unmask]; fax 610-889-1334