Important....Please read all of this message. Feel free to use it as reference or to send to others. Please do *not* send to everyone that you know. This only adds to Internet congestion. Hopefully most users have seen mention of this worm and if you need to give the facts to them, here is a reference, of if you want to recommend a good place to gather info. There are over 70,000 virus, worms, and trojans out there. We don't want to send notes out to everyone for each of these, do we?

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There is a menacing worm making the rounds. I have received it twice. Please note below that it will be activated by merely opening the message or have it open in the preview mode of Outlook.

From the SANS NewsBites Vol. 3 Num. 48
http://www.sans.org/
--26 November 2001 Badtrans.b Worm Spreading Rapidly Badtrans.B exploits an Outlook and Outlook Express vulnerability to execute its infected attachment automatically when the e-mail is opened. The worm's subject line appears to be a reply to a previously sent message. Badtrans.B self-propagates, then installs a back door on the computer, sends the machine's IP address to the worm's author, and runs a key logging program. http://www.infoworld.com/articles/hn/xml/01/11/26/011126hnbadtrans.xml

http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/internet/11/26/badtrans.worm/index.html

http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-7979449.html

More info for you.

From http://www.eweek.com/article/0,3658,s%253D701%2526a%253D18974,00.asp
"Badtrans.B, which is a variant of the original Badtrans virus, arrives in the user's inbox as an executable attachment with one of numerous names. The worm will execute if the infected message is viewed in the Outlook preview pane."

"Once it's resident on a PC, the worm replies to any unanswered messages in the user's inbox and tries to send the IP address of the machine to an anonymous e-mail account."

Quoted from Hewie's Favorite's Views & Reviews Newsletter http://www.hewie.net "Make sure that you have the *MOST* recent definition files for your AntiVirus Program. If you don't have one installed, purchase and install the AntiVirus program of your choice."

If you use Outlook or Outlook Express, turn off the Preview Pane. Here's how.
Go to "View" at top of Outlook. Click on "Preview Pane" and it will shut off. You have to do this in every email folder. Once it is done, it will stick. Make sure that you have emptied your "Deleted messages" before you go to that folder to adjust the setting.

I am sure that all of the AntiVirus Software vendors have pages with information, but here is Symantec's (Norton AntiVirus): http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.badtrans.b@mm.html
(This is a long URL and may wrap, losing part of the link).

I think that this is just a Windows problem, but MAC users should check to be sure.