"Naked Wife" virus/worm is on the loose! (3/7/01)

Question

Virus Alert! Naked Wife will render your computer useless! (3/7/01)

Answer

This question was answered on March 9, 2001. Much of the information contained herein may have changed since posting.

The W32/Naked@MM or "Naked Wife" virus is on the loose and wreaking havoc.

Here is what it currently looks like:

Subject: Fw: Naked Wife

Body:

My wife never look like that! ;-)

Best Regards,

(sender's name)

Attachment: NakedWife.exe

====================================================================

This virus/worm masquerades as a Flash movie and comes as an attachment in an e-mail message, generally from someone you know and may trust! If the attachment is opened, it sends itself to all recipients in the Outlook Address Book and attempts to delete all .BMP, .COM, .DLL, .EXE, .INI, and .LOG files in the WINDOWS and WINDOWS\SYSTEM directories.

This effectively will destroy the Windows operating system and make the computer unusable. If you get hit by this virus, you will likely get the following message the next time you try to start your computer:

Missing WIN.COM

Unless you have a current backup of your Operating System (Windows), you will have to re-install it and any applications, such as Word, Excel, Quicken, etc. that you need to run.

As with all unknown e-mail attachements, you should get into the practice of deleting any e-mail message that has an attachment, unless you know exactly what the attached file is or you are expecting the attachment from the sender.

For more tips on e-mail safety, go to:<a href="http://www.computerproblems.com/answer.cfm?AnswerID=16838&QuestionID=16900&CatID=38"><font color="#003399">>http://www.computerproblems.com/answer.cfm?AnswerID=16838&QuestionID=16900&CatID=38</font></a>

Author

Posted by Ken of Data Doctors on March 9, 2001