Got this from Jerry Pournelle today:

I received this warning a few hours ago. This one is insidious:

Dr. Pournelle:

Readers should be aware of the prevalence of emails that will infect your (unpatched) computer by just clicking on an link in the email. Some anti-virus vendors are calling it a MyDoom variant, others are calling it "Bofra". The exploit used was publicized late last week; it started becoming widespread yesterday (Monday). One alert about this problem is
here:

http://www.sophos.com/virusinfo/articles/bofra.html .

One version will purport to be a purchase verification from PayPal, another will tempt you with an "adult" link. Note that the infection is not from an email attachment, but via a link in the email.

If you click on the link in the email message, it will connect to the infected computer that sent you the email and try the "IFRAME" exploit to install itself on your computer. Your computer will send out email to harvested addresses from your computer. Anyone who clicks on your email link will become similarly infected.

Anti-virus companies have new updates available today. Although today is "Microsoft Patch Tuesday", initial reports don't indicate an included fix from Microsoft yet. If you are using Windows XP with SP2, you are not vulnerable. If you are using any other version of Windows, you are vulnerable, even if you use alternate browsers or email clients.

So, protection is:

- keep your computer patched (especially install Windows XP with SP2)

- keep your anti-virus current

- be very wary of any email message with a link in it. If the message was unsolicited, even if it came from someone you know, be careful about clicking on links. (Which I suppose could include this email, but the message content is another clue that you should use to verify the autenticity of the message.)

Regards, Rick Hellewell

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Roland has found this article about it:

Subject: Day-0 Windows exploit

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/zd/20041109/tc_zd/138829

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Roland Dobbins

BE CAREFUL OUT THERE!

Jerry Pournelle
Chaos Manor