The Data Transmission Computing Center for Region 1 (VDC1) has reported that many customers have recently encountered difficulties in sending and receiving emails.
Through technical verification and processing, VDC1 has identified that the main cause of these issues is the spread of spam due to viruses. Infected computers automatically disseminate large quantities of spam to any email addresses found, resulting in difficulties for users in managing their email communications.
According to VDC1, Sober is a prevalent virus that targets the SMTP email sending protocol. When infected with this virus, users find it extremely challenging to send emails because it paralyzes the SMTP service port. This virus typically manifests as W32.Sober.X@mm in infected mailboxes. Once a computer is infected, this virus automatically sends emails to all addresses in the user’s Address Book. For Offline Mail customers, since all users send emails externally through an internal server, when a user within the network is infected, the volume of emails sent from the internal server is significantly high, which leads to excessive connection requests to external servers. This high number of connection requests can be perceived as an attack, and as a result, connections may be denied, causing further complications in sending and receiving emails.
Users can utilize the Sober virus removal tool provided by Symantec or the new BKAV 2005 Home version. After downloading BKAV, restart the computer, enter Safe Mode by pressing F8 during the Windows startup, and then scan for viruses using BKAV.
