Computer worms overwhelm inboxes

Finnish virus researcher Mikko Hypponen had simply had enough on Saturday, and set about lighting the wood to heat the water in his sauna. A relentless stream of new viruses was taking its toll on him and his team, which has been working weekends and late nights for weeks now. Since the discovery of the Mydoom virus in late January, virus writers have been releasing malicious programs at a furious rate. There are some 15 variations of the Mydoom, Netsky, and Bagle viruses still making the rounds, and taken collectively, virus researchers say our e-mail might be more clogged than ever before. Inboxes around the world are teeming with cryptic notes that have simple messages like "Here is the file," or "I want a reply."

When antivirus companies give names to malicious programs, they add letters to virus names as a way of indicating variants, with NetSky.A being the initial version, NetSky.B the second variation, NetSky.C the third, etc. On Monday, researchers were up to NetSky.E, Bagle.H, and Mydoom.H.

With all the variants running around, it's nearly impossible for consumers to know what they are dealing with. And since most of the viruses come with a randomized file names and included text, it is impossible to tell consumers how to spot the malicious programs with the naked eye.

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