Symantec posts note on mass-mail worms and the Mac platform

Maker of anti-virus software Symantec has published a note for its Macintosh customers addressing the recent epidemic of mass-mail worms, and their effect on systems running Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X. The new states:

"To date, there is only one known mass-mailing worm that can infect the Macintosh. This worm, known as Mac.Simpsons@mm, is an AppleScript worm that can infect a Macintosh running Mac OS 8 - 9 and cannot infect Mac OS X. Norton AntiVirus for Macintosh versions 5 through 9, with virus definitions dated July 2001 or later, can detect this worm.

"Some Windows-specific mass-mailing email worms exploit a vulnerability in the Windows versions of Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express. The Macintosh versions of Microsoft Outlook Express and Entourage do not have this vulnerability.

"Since a worm or virus can be email based, a Macintosh user could pass on the worm or virus through an infected email, by manually forwarding it to a Windows user. If you receive an email infected with, or carrying a worm or virus, then delete the email and do not forward or reply to it. A good rule of thumb is to delete any email that has an attachment ending in .exe. There are other types of attachments that can be viruses or worms, but all attachments ending in .exe are executable files and will only work on a Windows computer. You have no use for this type of file on your Macintosh computer."

The document also contains several links to other sources of information about mass-mail worms.

Feedback? Late-breakers@macfixit.com.

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