Protect yourself from the
SirCam and Code Red Internet worms

By Andy Walker

The summer of 2001 was a bit of a scary time for Internet users thanks to both the SirCam and Code Red Worms, which are viruses that travel across networks (like the Internet).

Here's some information on how to deal with them.

SIRCAM WORM: The SirCam worm is a nasty piece of programming that messes with your e-mail program and personal files. When a Windows computer is infected, the worm grabs one of your documents and e-mails it to people in your e-mail address book with the message:

"Hi! How are you? I send you this file in order to have your advice See you later. Thanks."

If you recieve one of these emails DO NOT OPEN THE FILE ATTACHMENT otherwise your computer will be infected. Delete the e-mail immediately.

So how do you protect yourself from SirCam?

If you have an anti-virus program installed make sure you update it with the latest virus signatures, which are files that identify viruses and worms on a computer. There is likely to be an update tool inside the program to get the signatures from the Web. If your anti-virus program is older than one year you may have to pay for a subscription to update the signatures.

If you don't have an anti-virus program on your system, then it's a good idea to get one. They are generally not very expensive, usually under $40 US or $60 Canadian/Australian or about 20 UK pounds.

There are a couple we recommend here at Cyberwalker. Norton AntiVirus and McAfee VirusScan.

You can buy them at any computer store or download them from the Web as follows:

• Norton AntiVirus (download):
  
• Norton AntiVirus (box):
  
• McAfee VirusScan (download):
  
• McAfee VirusScan (box):
  
• McAfee online virus scanner
  

CODE RED WORM: The Code Red (and the new Code Red v.3) worm travels through the Internet attacking Web servers. It will not affect your computer if you have Windows 3.1., Windows 95, Windows 98 or Windows Me on your system. It could affect your computer if you run Windows NT 4.0 or Windows 2000. If the worm gets out of hand it may pollute the Internet will garbage traffic and eat up bandwidth (available telecommunications space for data to travel on), slowing the Internet down.

Please note that an anti-virus program will NOT protect vulnerable machines from this threat. However rebooting the machine will wipe it away as it is memory resident. A patch is available from Microsoft to fix the vulnerability. See our FAQ for more about this worm and how to protect yourself at:
http://www.cyberwalker.com/faqs/how-tos/code-red-worm.html

If this column still doesn't fully help you with questions that you may have about the Code Red or SirCam worms or for personalized help please see: Emergency Help.

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