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NorthNet News
Issue 33
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DECEMBER WINNER - The winner of NorthNet's Three Free Months
Contest for the month of December was Clark Morrison of Oswego.
Upon hearing the news of his winning, Mr. Morrison said,
"I'm delighted! This is the first thing I've ever won!"
The random drawing is held on the last day of each month
and all residential NorthNet customers are eligible.
"SNOW WHITE" UPDATE - Since the December issue of the NorthNet News, we
have seen a huge increase in the number of NorthNet customers infected by
the worm called Win32.Hybris. The worm enters your machine when you open an
attachment to a message with the subject "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs -
The REAL story!" You are infected if you have ever opened this attachment
even if nothing seemed to happen when you did so. The worm sends infected
messages to addresses from your computer without your knowledge. Only
computers running Windows are vulnerable.
If you receive an email message with this subject, resist the temptation to
open the attachment - no matter how many times you receive it.
"What we have here is perhaps the most complex and refined malicious
code in the history of virus writing," comments Eugene Kaspersky, Head
of Company Anti-Virus Research Center. "Firstly, it is defined by an
extremely complex style of programming. Secondly, all the plugins are
encrypted with very strong RSA 128-bit crypto-algorithm key. Thirdly,
the components themselves give the virus writer the possibility to
modify his creation 'in real time,' and in fact allow him to control
infected computers worldwide."
There is now a free fix for this worm available. NorthNet has posted a
copy of a fix created by Norton, with simplified directions, at
http://www.northnet.org/northnet/fix.hybris.html
If there is any possibility that you may be infected, we urge you to run the
fix.
To protect yourself from this and other viruses and worms you can download
a
free full-featured anti-virus program from: http://antivirus.cai.com/ or you
can use the well-known Norton or McAfee antivirus products, but your copy
must be updated with the latest virus 'definitions.'
For more information about the Snow White worm see:
http://www.sexyfun.net
WEBFEST CONTEST - NorthNet's Webfest Contest is underway, and there is
still time for Northern New York high school students to join in.
Some comments made so far by participating schools are:
Beekmantown:
"Here you can find a forum to contact your teacher, you can read the
student guide, see student art, or even read editorials written by
students.
"We like to build web sites and we wish to help aid the students on
contacting their teachers."
Massena
"More and more education and indeed more and more careers are based on
Internet applications. Web sites and their connections allow
students to more quickly and easily carry out research and to
communicate with the instructor. Certainly the best way to learn to
use this technology is to build it yourself. This contest gives us an
added incentive to begin new work and to connect with work already
done."
NEW INSTALL-BOT AVAILABLE - If you ever need to configure another
computer to connect to NorthNet, we now have a program you can download
that will do this automatically. You can get it from
http://web.northnet.org/nninstall.html
(Note 'web' not 'www' in the address.)
You can download the configuration program to a floppy disc which you can
then run on your new machine. The program creates a NorthNet dial-up
networking connection and configures your browser to use NorthNet's home
page and your NorthNet mail account.
You do not need this program if your computer is already configured for
NorthNet. The program only works for Windows 95 and above.
