The following information is from www.informationweek.com on Nov. 27, 2001

Virus Alert W32.Badtrans.B@mm

** Dangerous New Virus, Same Old Hole

An old and well-known security flaw in Microsoft's Internet
Explorer is continuing to cause problems, as a new worm that
exploits the flaw spreads on the Internet.

The worm, known as W32/BadTrans.B-mm, has been spotted in 50
countries, and is propagating rapidly, says Dave White,
technical manager for security company MessageLabs. It takes
advantage of a well-publicized hole in Explorer, the same
vulnerability used by the Nimda virus, which infected millions
of computers earlier this fall.

A previous version of the worm, BadTrans.A, spread in April,
infecting users who opened an infected E-mail attachment, but
the new variant can infect users who merely read or preview the message in Microsoft's Outlook E-mail program.

Once activated, the virus spreads by both replying to unread messages in the user's mailbox and mailing everyone in the recipient's address book. It also installs a Trojan-horse key-logging program on
the user's computer, which collects confidential information
like passwords and E-mails them to another address.

"We're getting hit quite hard," says Russ Cooper, surgeon
general for security firm TruSecure Corp. He says that a patch
for the IE vulnerability has been available since March, but
that home users in particular have been slow to update their
security. "Unless they've had a bad experience before, they
haven't learned what they should and shouldn't do," he says.
"The average person doesn't even know that these things exist,
so adoption is going to be slow." - David M. Ewalt

Note to CAA members:

Microsoft Internet Explorer Version 6 will solve the Microsoft security flaw. It upgrades both your browser and the Outlook Express email program.
It is available free on Microsoft's site at the following link...
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/downloads/ie6/download.asp

It will take a long time to download on a dial-up line, so you might want to consider ordering the CD for a nominal $10 shipping charge from Microsoft.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/ordercd/ie.asp

Antivirus
You should also have an antivirus program, such as Norton, or MCafee installed on your machine and it should be updated online and run weekly. It should be set to scan all files including incoming and outgoing emails.

Stop the Internet terrorists!

Jake