[plug] Telstra Nimba Worm Notification

[garry]

This was sent to a mate of mine, who uses ADSL. It's a bit wordy, but of 
interest.

Garry.


----- Original Message -----
From: "Telstra BigPond Security" <security at bigpond.com >
To: "Telstra BigPond members" <security at bigpond.com >
Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2001 6:17 AM
Subject: Information on the Nimda Worm

Dear Telstra BigPond(TM) member,

Telstra is alerting you to be wary of a fast-spreading worm. All Internet
users, including BigPond members, may experience delays when surfing
affected Web sites due to increased Internet traffic.

Telstra emphasises that the worm has not originated in its network. Nor is
Telstra responsible for the spreading of this worm on any of its
telecommunications networks.

The worm, called W32.Nimda, appears as a blank message with an attachment
called 'readme.exe' or 'admin.dll'.

Nimda spreads through email and searches for shared network drives,

seeking unpatched or vulnerable Microsoft Web servers (IIS or Internet 
Information Services), overloading them with Internet traffic.

The worm harvests email addresses from address books and sends itself to
all addresses as an attachment called readme.exe or admin.dll.

Please delete any emails you receive with the readme.exe or admin.dll
attachments and update your virus definitions to ensure that your system
is protected.

You can guard against infection by upgrading to Internet Explorer 5.01
Service Pack 2, or, version 5.5 Service Pack 2 at 
http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com

Network controls implemented by Telstra today have already prevented
several thousand attempts to spread the worm.

Once it has infected users' PCs, the Nimda worm exposes local hard drives
to the Local Area Network (LAN).

All Internet users, including Telstra BigPond members, can see the alert
at http://telstra.com/ServiceStatus

When viewing the service status page, please refresh your page to ensure
you have the latest information.

The worm does not affect Netscape Navigator users. It is not yet confirmed
whether MAC operating systems are vulnerable to this worm.

For more information, please visit our Virus FAQ's at
http://www.bigpond.com/Home/Support/Help/FAQ/Viruses.asp

Telstra BigPond endeavours to notify you as regularly as possible with
current security issues that may affect Telstra BigPond members.

> Regards,
> The Telstra BigPond(TM) team

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