Steve,
Don't worry about replying to my E-Mail message [unless you want to]. I can imagine that people you don't even know are blasting the heck out of you by E-Mail, but they do not understand that Worms copy themselves and send themselves automatically - and the infected host computer's user/owner has no knowledge that this is going on!
It wasn't totally your fault [only the opening of attachments from unknown sources, or even known sources w/o verification was a no-no
].
These Worms do a very quick and dirty method of bouncing out copies via E-Mail, so once again my favorite PSA: Sig Files plus identifying text, along with some type of verification should be common practice when sending out attached E-Mail files. Security is crucial.
These Worms cannot do anything until executed or saved to your fixed disk then executed.
Executed means simply "ran". When you click an Icon in Windows to run a program, the Icon launches an .EXE file - that's an executable file. .BAT, .COM and scripts plus macros can run executables.
So much for the crash course in machine language 101
There's quite a bit more to it, which would be at least 2 more paragraphs [silly, huh?].
Sorry that you got thrown in the fire with this darn Worm! Imagine if you could use this hacking ability to do something useful and benificial, as opposed to harmful and annoying?? That's what really irritates me! Would just love to have the hacking skills of the software EEs that create those real hardcore viruses. All my computer related work would be done automatically! One can only dream...
Scott SET
BTW: Bill,
Have you been bounced this Worm under my address? I sent out a warning message to all in my address book, so hopefully everyone will read it before depositing it to 'La Corbea [french for "The Trash Can" - spelling doesn't count when you have been awake for 22.5 hours
]