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There's a new virus, Worm_Mylife.M, that arrives embedded in a mail
attachment and pretends to be a Julia Roberts nude. Previous version of this
virus have been embedded in supposed nudes of Shakira, Anna Kournikova and
Britney Spears.
This destructive, mass-mailing worm targets Microsoft Outlook users running
Windows 95, 98, NT, ME, 2000 and XP. And begin by dropping (saving) a copy
of itself to the local computer. It also prompts the user to open or save
MYLIFE.MPG. The worm creates a registry entry that reloads it every time
Windows restarts. The virus replicates by mailing itself to every contact in
the Address Book.
The destructive payload triggers if the current path where the worm's
executed is the Windows %System% folder. And if the current minute of the
hour is greater than 50. If both conditions are met, the worm deletes the
contents of %System%\. of %Windows%\*.sys, as well as the contents of d:\,
e:\, and f:\. For viruses such as this, prevention is better than cure. Make
sure to scan mail attachments before actually opening them.
Newly updated software begins with Popcorn 1.45b that besides bug
fixes and code-level enhancements, also supports APOP authentication. This
protocol is used for secure login using MD5 digital signatures. Also
improved is the "Mailbox info for all Profiles" dialog that lists the
mailbox, message count and box size instead of the previous version's
complex calculation showing the difference between total message size less
read message size.
There's also an included REG patch file to make Popcorn the default mail
client. As well as Also new options to poll mail accounts on startup. And to
minimize the application on close to the system tray. The downside is that
to close and exit Popcorn you need to right-click its tray icon and choose
exit. A minor annoyance. There's also an option for a user-definable spell
check for new mail. However, this requires a connection to the Internet. And
spell-checks just 1 word at a time. Instead I recommend using the free
spell checker.
My test run shows remarkable improvements in polling speed and downloading
mail headers, processing them, reading marked messages and deleting mail.
System resource use is still very low -- under 4 MB -- for supported
features. Double-clicking a mail profile in the Poll Accounts dialog is a
quick shortcut to the mailbox. Popcorn's also a neat app to view with
attachment-riddled email. Especially as it reads all mail as plain text.
This means that HTML is rendered in its pure code form and attachments are
read in pure ASCII format as well.
Use PopCorn to view your mailbox and you will never intentionally get a
virus. But Popcorn a hopeless client to use if you do have to deal with
attachments or fancy-formatted messages. I use Popcorn (126 kB, Windows,
target="_freel">freeware) to check my mailbox contents and delete junk
before downloading my mail into Outlook Express.
G Menon
freeloader@Ph&
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Disclaimer: The views expressed in this column are those of the author. These views are not necessarily the same as that of CIOL