Hi everyone,
 
I know there was mention of this before but I just wanted to reinforce
the issue at hand.  Today, I opened my email in both my AOL and Earthlink
accounts only to discover that my Norton Antivirus was going nuts.
Apparently in both of my accounts, there an email with a virus attached
that read "VET HELP, PLEASE RESPOND".  Apparently someone found this
either amusing or they are intentionally attacking the ferret community.
Being a shelter, I would have opened that email and tried to respond to
their what seemed to be legit plea for help.  After checking with my
brother, this is an old virus called Michael Angelo.  It was around about
5 or more years ago so apparently some stored this thing.  See many
people don't know you need to update your computer.  Most often times
if you have Norton it was remind you to update your virus protections.
I am not sure if Mcafee does but I am sure there is a way to update it.
I could not imagine the upset that virus would have caused on this
computer.  I have a lot ferret information stored on my computer that is
not replacable.  Also be careful of worms.  A recent warning was that
there worms being attached to emails that send the information back to
the hacker.  Not that we need this in our ferret community but it seems
someone is trying to corrupt the computers of ferret people.  Others have
said the same thing happened to them but they had Norton.  So please,
please, please, update your virus protection and be leary of emails such
as the one I received.
 
[Moderator's note: While the possibility that someone is doing this
intentionally can't be dismissed, I rather doubt it.  For one, older
viruses often resurface, perhaps with very minor changes.  But also,
some days I receive literally thousands of infected e-mails and anytime
I manage to track some down I've found they've been distributed
unintentionally.  (Most I just delete, but when there are many which
appear to originate from the same place I investigate further.)  BIG]
[Posted in FML issue 4548]