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Blackmal deletion day appears a dud |
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Sunday, 05 February 2006 |
A mass-mailing computer virus about which antivirus companies warned their users has largely failed to materialize, several sources said on Friday.
The virus--dubbed Blackmal.E, Nyxem.E and Kama Sutra by antivirus companies and designated as CME 24 under the Common Malware Enumeration standard--had been thought to have spread to as many as 600,000 computers, according to an analysis of the viruss behavior.
Reports of damage from the virus were few. The city of Milan, Italy, shut down 10,000 city government computers after discovering on Thursday that many of the systems were infected, according to the Associated Press. Some organizations that had PCs with incorrect date settings saw some early damage as well.
Yet, antivirus experts continued to warn that home users might see damage later in the weekend as they turn on infected systems, according to CNET News.com. A similar threat posed by the Sober virus, which was supposed to download additional functionality on January 5, largely failed to happen as well. That virus also relied on external Web sites that made it easier to shut down. |