I new virus named sasser is apparently causing big problems among several networks. It was discovered in the US late on Friday and began spreading yesterday as employees returned to work and turned on their machines.
The worm caused some computers to continually crash and reboot, apparently the result of bad programming by the virus writer rather than intent, security experts said. Sasser does not cause any permanent damage to files or machines, they added.
Sasser is one of the new high risk viruses because it does not require users to click on an email attachment to activate it, which causes it to spread more rapidly than most viruses.
Apparently the virus only affects windows 2000 and windows xp, older versions of windows should not be effected.
It is advised that if you use windows 2000 or xp you should immediately download the latest security patches from microsoft (
http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com ).
Also see -
http://www.microsoft.com/security/incident/sasser.asp .
Also update all your anti-virus files immediately.
The Web sites of anti-virus vendors have instructions for removing the worm from machines already infected.
Reports are coming in that the virus has already caused problems with goverment departments, hopitals, schools, television networks and banks.
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