Wednesday, August 20th, 2003  It's been a rough two weeks for network administrators who've been hit by the greatest onslaught of viruses in recent memory. The last two days have been the worst. At one point today I received 368 virus infected emails in a single hour. The MSBlaster and LoveSan virus led the pack last week. It was followed by WORM_MSBLAST.D, Nachi, Welchia. Now this week the more virulent Sobig.F worm and it's variants have been spreading at a pace that is nothing short of amazing.

According to an Associated Press article published in today's Wired Magazine

It arrives in e-mail and includes a variety of subject lines, including "Your details," "Thank you!," "Your application" and "Wicked screensaver." It has caused some corporate e-mail systems to grind to a halt, according to Sophos.

When the .pif or .scr attachment is opened, Sobig.F infects the computer and sends itself on to other victims using a random e-mail address from the address book (of the victim's computer).

Which is why you might have gotten an email addressed from mcgee@vividlight.com or admin@vividlight.com. That email didn't come from us, but from someone who had our address in their address book.

Our computers sit behind two firewalls: one for the network, and a personal firewall on each individual computer. Each computer also runs anti-virus software that checks every incoming and outgoing email as well as checking the hard disk each evening. That software also goes out over the Internet and updates itself each evening so it is always aware of the latest virus threats. When you've been on the Web as long as we have you take virus security VERY seriously - because Microsoft doesn't.

The root cause of the problem is that Microsoft "system security" is Swiss cheese. If you think, as we do, that this whole situation is ridiculous please send hate mail directly to Microsoft by clicking here. If they take enough heat they may take steps to fix their operating systems.

What You Should Do 
If you have a personal firewall and anti-virus software scanning your email and hard drive the events of the last few days will have been nothing but a minor annoyance. A partial list of vendors who provide these products is included below. We're not endorsing a particular product. These are the vendors recommended on Microsoft.com.

If you have Windows XP, NT, 2000, or Server 2003 you must download and patch the security hole in you system that is letting these bugs in. GO HERE and choose your operating system under "patch" and download and install the patch software.