Symantec Corp, the Cupertino, California-based maker of utilities software, has discovered a virus which has two different forms, one to travel in and one with which it infects a PCs rebooting procedure. The W97M.Melissa.U virus, an isotope of the Melissa virus that caused so much damage in March (CI No 3,628), propagates using the email addresses stored in Microsoft Outlook. When it attacks the PC though, it takes on the form of W97M.Melissa.(Gen 1), deleting files so that users cannot reboot their PCs.
It means that users have to defend against both viruses, not just one, in what Kevin Street, technical manager for Symantec EMEA calls the belt and braces approach. Symantec’s Norton AntiVirus has antidotes to each, and users can simply use the Norton LiveUpdate service to get the necessary patch without having to close down their machine. Symantec says that the virus was first discovered ‘in the wild’ in a West Coast US firm, but it is as yet unclear whether the virus has managed to cross the Atlantic into Europe.
