VACM: "Zoher" post-Christmas virus, turn off your preview pane!

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"Zoher" post-Christmas virus, turn off your preview pane!

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Greetings from The VACM Team,

In this issue:
------------------------------------
- "Zoher" post-Christmas virus, turn off your preview pane!
This email virus may execute automatically if you open the
email or if your "preview pane" is turned on (which is the
same as opening emails as you click on them)

***************************************************
* The Bottom Line...
***************************************************
The "Zoher" email worm is in the wild and is technically
sophisticated. Depending on whether you have applied the
updates VACM recommended in the past, this virus may run
automatically if you open (or your preview pane opens) the email.

The email arrives with a subject line of:

"Scherzo!"

and with a Javascript attachment. The worm executes
automatically on some systems. If you have performed the
"How To" articles on the VACM Archives web site, and have
patched your web browser per previous articles, you will
probably not be infected.

The message body of the email is quite long and is
written in Italian. Zoher uses an approach similar to
the Nimda worm- it can be activated from an infected
e-mail when a user simply reads or previews a message.

The worm has the ability to propagate itself if you cause
it to run.

***************************************************
* What You Should Do...
***************************************************
1. Update your antivirus software's virus definitions daily.

2. Patch Internet Explorer so that you are not vulnerable to this
type of infected email. If you did not apply the Microsoft
patches to Internet Explorer when Nimda came out, please
refer back to that VACM Alert at:

VACM Alert- Nimda worm...

3. Turn off your "Preview Pane" now and always.
If you haven't already done all of our "How To" articles to
harden your system against these types of viruses, now might be
a good time to consider it. They can be found at:

VACM Archives Home Page

***************************************************
* If You Get Infected
***************************************************
Get the latest updates for your antivirus software (dated
12/26/01 or later) and, once installed, do a complete
system scan.

Best Regards,
Marc Deschenes, VACM Editor
The VACM Project at
Automated PC Solutions

*** Be sure to check out the appendix at the end of this alert
if you are having trouble booting your computer into "Safe Mode".
The process is all spelled out for you there.

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******** APPENDIX - Handy How-To Tips **********

* How To Boot into Safe Mode

Shut the computer down so that the power is off.

Turn the computer on, wait 1 second and begin pressing the F8 key
on the keyboard, once every second repeatedly. Do this until
the Windows Startup Menu appears. If you get a keyboard
error, press F1 to resume and then continue pressing the
F8 key once every second, or your PC may tell you to press another key for BIOS setup.

Select Safe Mode from the Windows Startup Menu, then press
the Enter key on the keyboard.

Windows will then boot into Safe Mode.
NOTE: This may take longer than a normal boot.

At the end of the boot process a dialog box will appear
informing you that Windows is in Safe Mode. Click OK on this dialog box.

Windows is now in Safe Mode.

If you miss hitting the F8 at the right time, Windows will boot
normally and you will not see the "Safe Mode" message. In this
case, start from the top of these instructions until you get the
boot menu screen where you can choose "Safe Mode". This can be
a little tricky the first time you do it.