STRATEGIC PARTNERS
The latest computer virus, called Sir Cam, is invading the Inboxes of quite a few folks in the ATM industry.
December 26, 2001
Computer viruses are an all-too-common ailment in the information age. New ones crop up all the time. PC users may have encountered Melissa, Pretty Park and the Love Bug, among others, in their Inboxes.
A new and especially insidious virus is making the rounds – and seems to be finding its way to quite a few folks in the ATM industry.
The quick-spreading virus, called Sir Cam, propogates by using shared folders on networked computers, according to Symantec. It embeds random documents from an infected PC to itself, then sends emails containing the infected attachment to recipients found in an infected users' Address Book. The subject line of the email will be same as the file name of the attachment.
The message body will be semi-random, according to Symantec, but most often contains either "Hi! How are you?" or "Hola como estas?" as the first line of the message and either "See you later. Thanks" or Nos vemos, pronto, gracias" as the last line.
Between these two sentences, it will likely include a message reading "I send you this file in order to get your opinion" or a similar phrase.
In the past week, this writer has received virus-ridden emails from three ISOs and a site broker. Others at NetWorld Alliance, owner of both the ATMmarketplace.com and KIOSKmarketplace.com Web sites, have received similar emails from members of the ATM community.
Alik Perakh, operations manager for Cashflow ATM, a San Diego-based ISO, has received eight infected emails in the past two days. "It's spreading like wildfire within our industry's community," he said. The subject line of the emails, such as "Sample Profit model for Food Lion2," make them look like authentic deals or proposals, Perakh added.
For more information on the virus, and advice on how to remove it, visit http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.sircam.worm@mm.html
