What It Does
This is a variant of the I Love You virus. Like the original "I Love You," this variant spreads itself via
Microsoft's Outlook software and can delete image files from a user's computer.
What It Looks Like
The actual e-mail will come to a user's system with the "from"
line referring to the person who unintentionally sent it and the subject line:
"US PRESIDENT AND FBI SECRETS" and an attachment with a randomly generated file-name and extension of
".GIF.vbs", ".BMP.vbs" or ".JPG.vbs". The VBS extension might not be displayed depending on the configuration
of the system.
How to Prevent It
The latest variant appears to have affected only users who did not keep their
anti-virus protection software up to date. If you receive a message that you think contains the virus, delete it without opening the message. If you have McAfee Anti-Virus, go to http://download.mcafee.com/updates/updates.asp to get the latest update. If you have Norton Anti-virus, go to http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/download.html.
To find out how USF students and faculty members can get McAfee Anti-virus for free go to http://www.acomp.usf.edu/Help/virusprotection.html