A crippling computer virus is crashing email networks around the world.
One in 17 e-mails now has the SoBig.F bug - which threatens to slow the internet to a crawl.
The SoBig virus spreads when computer users open file attachments in e-mails that contain such familiar headings as "Thank you", "Re: Details" or "Re: approved".
Once the file is opened, SoBig, which first appeared on Monday, scours the computer for e-mail addresses, checking in Word documents, Internet logs and e-mail inboxes.
Designed like mass-mailing spam programmes, it then sends scores of messages to the addresses it has collected.
MessageLabs, a British-based Internet security firm, said one in 17 e-mails sent around the world since Monday had been affected by SoBig.
Messagelabs' chief information analyst Paul Wood said it was feared that it could increase global e-mail traffic by as much as 60 percent, slowing the Internet to a crawl.
"It's unprecedented in our history. We stopped over one million (infections) in the first day," he said.
"It's a pretty frightening statistic. And the next incarnation could be even worse.
(Basically dont open any attachments....easy as that)
One in 17 e-mails now has the SoBig.F bug - which threatens to slow the internet to a crawl.
The SoBig virus spreads when computer users open file attachments in e-mails that contain such familiar headings as "Thank you", "Re: Details" or "Re: approved".
Once the file is opened, SoBig, which first appeared on Monday, scours the computer for e-mail addresses, checking in Word documents, Internet logs and e-mail inboxes.
Designed like mass-mailing spam programmes, it then sends scores of messages to the addresses it has collected.
MessageLabs, a British-based Internet security firm, said one in 17 e-mails sent around the world since Monday had been affected by SoBig.
Messagelabs' chief information analyst Paul Wood said it was feared that it could increase global e-mail traffic by as much as 60 percent, slowing the Internet to a crawl.
"It's unprecedented in our history. We stopped over one million (infections) in the first day," he said.
"It's a pretty frightening statistic. And the next incarnation could be even worse.
(Basically dont open any attachments....easy as that)
