Xenite.Org News

If you have received a virus from a Xenite.Org address...

May 01, 2002 at 23:56:13

We are aware that an increasing number of people are receiving large emails from Xenite.Org and SF-FANDOM addresses which are infected with the W32.KLEZ worm, or some variation of it.

Please understand that those of us who are responsible for generating most of the email sent from Xenite.Org and SF-FANDOM email addresses have taken precautions against being infected by such worms. Furthermore, we have ourselves received such messages, and we are actively checking our systems for infection.

At this time, it appears to us that one or more spammers have scooped addresses from our Web sites (or purchased false "opt-in" mailing lists which contain those addresses) and entered those addresses into their address books. Some of these spammers appear to have infected systems.

We cannot do anything about the swarm of Klez-infected emails being sent out by those people. They are not affiliated with Xenite.Org or SF-FANDOM and they either cannot control what FROM: addresses are set by the worm or else they are using our return addresses without permission.

Symantec, the makers of Norton Anti-virus, have posted information and free tools for checking suspect computers here:

http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.klez.gen@mm.html

Mcafee, another leading provider of anti-virus software, has also posted information about this worm:

http://vil.mcafee.com/dispVirus.asp?virus_k=99455

The email messages we are receiving are typically 125-150 kilobytes large. They appear to contain real messages stored on infected systems and are simply being used to carry the worm to other computers.

Users of Microsoft's Outlook and Outlook Express are vulnerable to infection by this worm. It MAY destroy all files on your computer come September 13.

We regret the inconvenience these worm attacks have caused many of you, even though your systems have not been infected. We are feeling the pain, too, and we will soon begin changing the way we invite people to contact the administrative staff.

But we have no control over this worm or what addresses it uses. Please understand that we are not responsible for infected systems, which are well beyond our reach.