How to get rid of new Sobig.F virus?
As you know, this time the virus under the name Sobig.F has
wreaked quite havoc! No doubt, many of us have suffered from
this recent virus outbreak. According to an online poll
conducted by CNN: 32% of respondents were infected with this
malicious virus. At the pick, each of every 17 emails contained
sobig.F! Internet service provider AOL says it scanned 40.5
million emails and found the virus in more than half of them.
Sobig accounted for 98 percent of all viruses found in these
emails. What is Sobig.F virus? This is a worm type of virus.
Which means it is an executable program that installs
enhancement to your Windows operating system. The ?F? implies
that it is the sixth of the family of Sobig viruses. The first
one was launched in the beginning of this year. The latest
attack was started on August 19. According to some experts,
Sobig.F was first posted to a porn Usenet group and spread from
there. It is timed to deactivate itself on September 10. The
pre-built deactivation mechanism itself is a worrisome factor.
Most experts think this means there are more to come! How it
works?
Sobig.F comes along with an email with subject headers like Your
details, Thank you!, Re: Thank you!, Re: Details, Re: Re: My
details, Re: Approved, Re: Your application, Re: Wicked
screensaver or Re: That movie. The body of the message is quite
short and usually contains either "See the attached file for
details" or "Please see the attached file for details." Once the
file is opened, Sobig.F resends itself using a built-in mailing
program to e-mail addresses from the infected computer. As a
sender is address it shows one of the e-mails randomly selected
from the computer's address book. The worm was also supposed to
attempt to retrieve an URL from a predetermined list of 20
master servers on a certain date and time. The content of that
URL was to be downloaded and executed on the infected machines.
Luckily those servers were identified right away and shut down.
How to protect yourself against it? If your computer is infected
or you have doubts, first thing you should do is: to check and
clean up your computer from this virus. Although, it is set to
deactivate on September 10, which means it will no longer
multiply itself, however, left untouched, it might attempt to
update itself, once the newer version of the virus comes out.
Suggestion One:
1. If you do not have latest version of anti-viruses installed,
go to the Symantec?s following page:
http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.sobig.f@mm.html,
2. Down load the Sobig.F removal tool for completely free of
charge. 3. Install and run it by strictly following the steps
described on the page.
Suggestion Two: Download the latest security patches for your
version of Windows and install them.
Suggestion Three: If you are using Microsoft Outlook, follow
the steps below to stop them appearing in your inbox: - Open
Outlook - Click on ?Tools? from main menu - Choose Rules Wizard
from the drop down menu - On the page ?Apply changes to this
folder?: Click on ?New? - Select ?Start creating a rule from
Templates? - Choose ?Move messages based on content? - Click on
? specific words? link from the box at the bottom - A small
window will appear, add each and every phrase scrupulously from
the list below: Re: Thank you! Thank you! Your details Re:
Details Re: Re: My details Re: Approved Re: Your application Re:
Wicked screensaver Re: That movie And your_document.pif
document_all.pif thank_you.pif your_details.pif details.pif
document_9446.pif application.pif wicked_scr.scr movie0045.pif -
Once finished click on ?OK? to close the window. - Click on the
link ?specified? at the same box - Open a new folder by clicking
on the ?New? button under the name ?Virus Spam? - Click on ?OK?
- Click on ?Finish? - From now on all emails with the above
mentioned phrases and attachments will be moved to the ?Virus
Spam? folder. - All you have to do is delete the emails, which
will appear there. A few more cautions: Don?t open any
executable attachment in an email, unless you are hundred
percent sure that this is a legitimate file that you have been
expecting. Install an anti-virus program and update it on time,
at the end, this might be the best possible solution to protect
ourselves from these ugly online creatures!