I have recently switched from Outlook Express to Outlook, because I need it to synchronize with a Pocket PC that I received for a birthday present. It's not all that different & I can export contact information, calendars, tasks, notes, etc. into the hand-held device. But there are a few things that are different, so I must admit that I'm not as proficient with Outlook as I probably should be.

I received a copy of the Homepage virus/worm/whatever the thing is, from a friend who had just sent me a message. She sometimes sends a link to a website, so I wasn't all that concerned. I did notice that it had a .vb? extension on it, but who am I to argue with Microsoft? Besides, I had the latest, greatest Norton AntiVirus & Firewall on my machine, so I was safe, right? Yeah, right...

Of course I wanted to see the website she had sent me, so I clicked on the attachment. It took a moment for me to pick my chin up off the keyboard, as this was not the usual type of thing she sent. Close, though.. But I still had not grasped the significance of what had just happened, as there had been absolutely nothing mentioned about it in all the tech news media, or any of the antiviral email notifications I routinely receive from Panda Software, etc. I closed Internet Explorer, and now the lucky part of this article comes into play.

I was through with the email replies so I decided to get some "real" work done. I asked Outlook to close, & it asked me if I was certain this was what I wanted to do, since I still had messages in my outbox. That was definitely odd, as I was certain I had already sent out all my replies. But it was possible that the ISP server was being temperamental, so I checked my outbox. There were over 100 messages in there, all with attachments, and I knew then that I'd been had. Before Outlook could throw these out to all my kith & kin, I deleted them, and then went searching for information on this nasty little beast. I could find _nothing_ about a Homepage virus on Symantec's website. I was finally able to find a generic article about Visual Basic Script generators that were used to inflict mayhem on unsuspecting computer users.

Fortunately, Homepage was more or less benign, except for possibly embarrassing you badly. However, all of you, who receive email from me, thank your lucky stars I'm Irish! You could be trying to explain to your religious leader why you went to that pornographic web page?? And I'd swear I had absolutely nothing to do with it...

TCS Members interested in the Homepage Virus, we had a virus report on it two virus reports ago: http://www.tcs.org/virusalert/homepage.htm

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