"TOM KAN PA" wrote in message
...
Reports of bin Laden's death are viral lure

Beware of clicking

By INQUIRER staff: Saturday 24 July 2004, 18:46

NEWS.COM and other wires report that sensational messages spreading on
USENET
and by email which flash news of the death of Osama bin Laden's death are
really lures to trap the unwary into downloading a Trojan horse.

According to news.com, the message purports to have a picture of the
arch-terrorist committing suicide. But click on the picture and before you
know
where you are you've got an infection. µ

Tom your warning is very appropriate dispite the attitudes expressed by some
in this thread. Everyone should know that the Osama picture may be a link
to an maliscious web site that runs a file by taking advantage of a known
security hole in Internet Explorer. It is not necessarily an .exe
attachment. Or it might be an exe disguised as a jpg. with only the jpg
extension seen in the attachment window. Seasoned Internet users can get
caught by a tricky email or web virus.

A first line of defense is to make sure the windows operating system is
updated at the Windows Update site. Be sure to get every Critical Update.
Second is to keep onboard anti virus updated. I even have a DOS virus system
onboard if I have to quickly go to DOS and scan my computer.

If someone is caught with an old virus update and a virus installs,
sometimes the next update will give a cure for the virus. So don't give up
hope of curing the nasty from the infected computer.

Wil