“Unpaid invoic” email
Last week, an email titled ‘Unpaid invoic’ with an attachment called ‘F449182.zip’ arrived in many of your inboxes and appeared to be from people that you correspond with. The only text in the message said ‘Please review attached document.’ If you were not expecting an e-mail and the body text does not describe the attachment clearly, please contact the sender to confirm its authenticity, before opening it.
If you clicked on the attachment, in Microsoft Outlook, it forwarded itself to your Outlook contact list. If you use a Windows computer, the virus would infect your computer, unless your antivirus software detected it.
People on the Psychiatry network appear to have been protected by our centrally managed Sophos Antivirus software. UBC members can download one free copy (Mac or PC) of Sophos Antivirus, from the UBC IT web site. Click “CWL Login” on http://it.ubc.ca/ubc-its-software-downloads, to get your copy.
For those infected, we do not know what this virus will attempt to do. We recommend that you backup your data/personal files, format and reinstall everything on your computer. Typically viruses do one or more of the following;
- Propagate themselves.
- Open and modify your files.
- Delete your files, up to and including your whole hard drive.
- Wait to a specified date, then use your computer, in conjunction with many others, to bombard other computers with network traffic, so that they can’t function.
- Record your passwords, as you type them, for later identity theft.
- Use your computer to distribute illegal files (e.g. pornography or copy written files)
- Send your files to others.
- Display messages on your screen.
Colin Bryant
Computer System Coordinator | Medicine | Psychiatry
The University of British Columbia | Pt. Grey Campus
Phone 604 822 7374