MSN Messenger Virus: BEWARE

[Nastrodamus]

Ok... I have a lot (whole heap) of persons in my messenger list. Since this morning I have noted that several of you have tried to send me a file. The only problem is the file is a short-cut.

Not wanting a short-cut I opted not to accept the short-cut and ask that you send me the real file rather than the short cut. Yet there is no reply from any of the users.

This has happen several times from morning. Am I the only one experiencing this?

[nsj]

Hi Guys,
I dont know if any of you have experienced it, but there's a new virus going around through MSN Messenger.

How it starts:
Your closest friend might send you an MS-DOS looking file (a shortcut) with the file name "Topless in Mini Skirt! lol.pif". DO NOT ACCEPT IT!

It sends this file to all your contacts and creates "hidden" copies in your OS installation root.

If you accept it by mistake, turn on hidden file viewing, go to your installation root (most likely C in My Computer, sort by modified date, and delete all hidden files that you dont know about created most recently.

Looking for an article, but nothing yet on the web about this.

[Cultus]

Is that why you blocked me by any chance....I'm jus kiddin.....but out of curiosity...did you get any files transfer requests from me....just wanna make sure that I am not emitting virii and not aware of it..

[Moni-Q]

I got quite a few of these as well. Some of the machines in the office were infected. Its not very dangerous though, i.e. no destruction of files.

[Chris]

Yup, just encountered it a few minutes ago. Chatting with someone then they appeared to be "away" and then an invitation to download a file named "my holiday pictures.pif" or something like that. Of course I declined the invitation.

ps. I'm running MSN ver. 6.2.0205

[Electrotechnic]

This virus has been out for about a month or so now. The most it did was shutdown messenger after a series of hay-wire effects. Went into task manager then removed all weird named processed then voila....back on messenger!

[MiTcHiE]

This is driving me up a wall, left my pc, came back to c a million messages, all asking me to accept a file. I have blocked about 20+ people because of this. Cant believe people would accept a file they know nothing about, espeicially a pif.

[Hellsing's Finest]

i haven't been on messenger for a while so this is all news to me, thanks for the heads up

[death_knight]

you knwo what funny they caught me today star, but they did it differently that the lil short cut thing, is a sistrin that i talk to nuff, them send it as a url, case you know people alwasy do them ting there, like yo look at this my yute it hard "url" then on clicking it something got dled when i look it was the msdos shortcut star. lift ma hats off to them i already got rid of it and the hidden file thought but them keep changing the distribution mechanisms for the virii.

[Arch_Angel]

Nope. Haven't got such a request. I have only techies on my msn list, so I most likely will not get a request to download any such file from them.