Possible Worm Virus?

I have been receiving very suspicious both generic and reptile-related emails with attachments. &nbsp;All the attachments are *.zip files. &nbsp;The names of the files range from pictures.zip, antivirus.zip to slksdhkf.zip. &nbsp;I have received at least 30 of these over the course of a week. &nbsp;I don't know if these are virus programs or not. &nbsp;(I certainly am not going to download them to find out&#33<img src="http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=''>

I am suspicious of one person. I was Instant Messaged by some kid in California looking for information on pythons. &nbsp;He has since IM'd me probably 50 times so far asking this and that and then arguing with me if he doesn't like my answer. &nbsp;He claims to be 18 but based on his grammar, etc., I am very suspicious. &nbsp;Furthermore, in one of his IM's he bragged to me about how a bunch of people were mean to him on kingsnake.com so he infected the site with a virus. &nbsp;

I have done nothing to this kid and in fact stopped what I was doing every time he IM'd me to answer his questions. &nbsp;He is still IMing me in fact. So I have no reason to believe I have upset him but I know there are other reasons to send viruses (ie. spy, etc.) I did download one file from him, a pic of his enclosure that he was needing help with. I erased the file and scanned my hard-drive with PC-cillin, which said it was clean. &nbsp;

I apologize for the long message but I am not a computer expert and am not sure what I can do to protect myself. &nbsp;Has anyone else been getting such emails?

There is something that has been going around the reptile community. It is called Kakworm. Antivirus programs will not stop it. It will eventually shut your email down completely. Here is a link with instructions for checking your computer and removing it. Afterwards if you are using Outlook Express you need to got to www.microsoft.com and download the latest patch for it and it will prevent the worm from re-infecting.

http://www.sarc.com/avcenter/venc/da...kworm.fix.html

Thanks. &nbsp;I downloaded the antivirus programs. &nbsp;Fortunately my computer is not infected.

Jeff,

Viruses are all over the board. I have been getting at least twice a day. I am lucky my internet provider "cleans" them first and lets me know which one it was.

Regards &nbsp;<img src="http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=''>

<img src="http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/mad.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=''> i have been getting them to they say zip or modzip znd run in dos the email address they have been coming from is cnewell@utk.edu (cnewell) &nbsp;i wish this crap would stop &nbsp;



&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;thanks ronald allen

As it says on the website there are two versions of this kakworm. Make sure you try both versions on your computer. When I tried the first one it told me I was not infected, but after installing the second program it found the worm in three different places. Make sure you use both kakworm programs and update your outlook express even if you don't have the infection to prevent it from happening. I have gotten no more emails since I removed it and updated outlook.
Good Luck,

Mike Jones