June 6, 2002
Information-technology Promotion Agency
Security Center (IPA/ISEC)

Computer Virus Incident Reports [Summary]

W32/Klez Virus is spreading!  It occupied 80% of the report!!

This is a summary of Computer Virus Incident Reports for May 2002 compiled by IPA: Information-technology Promotion Agency

2410 reports were submitted to IPA in May (2012 reports in April). The number of reports remained high level of over 2000 reports for two months. Also, actual damage rate increased 1.1%, from 6.7%(April) to 7.8% (May).

W32/Klez Virus reached 1943 reports*, and it occupied 80 % of the total reports. The actual damage rate of this virus was low level of  7.5% and they seemed to avoid second infection. However, many users were supposed to sending virus mails without realization of infection. That causes spreading W32/Klez Virus.

* As a monthly report number of a single kind of virus, this is the second largest number next to W32/Badtrans Virus (2701 reports) in December 2001.

Also, because we have received many inquiries on W32/Klez virus, we set FAQ, so that please refer to it

Question:1
Without my realization, via my email address, I send emails to others. Has my computer got virus infection?

Answer:1
W32/Klez Virus assumes the sender’s name. Thus your email address is just misused as a sender’s address, and possibly not infected. Also, in case you have done prevention from the below URL before, there is more risk of assuming name. In that case, we advise you to tell your friends the following information as a reference.

Information on the variants of 'W32/Klez' Virus
http://www.ipa.go.jp/security/topics/newvirus/klez.html (Japanese)

Question:2
I receive 10-20 error emails (or caution mails by virus detection) every day. Because of virus infection?

Answer:2
W32/Klez Virus assumes sender’s mail address. Therefore, `receiving error mails’ does not always mean `computer is infected by virus’. Since the mail address sent by W32/Klez Virus is unknown, there is a possibility that error messages returned to the sender’s address (your address) that was used. The best way to check whether your computer is infected or not is to detect by the latest anti-virus software.

The other FAQ related on W32/Klez are on the following site. Also, please refer to `5 frequent cases of consultation’.

W32/Klez related FAQ (Japanese)

5 frequent cases of consultation (Japanese)

Warning for this month: Nothing wrong with your computer?
===== Let’s check virus infection =====

Even though your computer is infected by virus, it is rarely distinguished the infection of the virus at a glance. Therefore, usually, you will not realize until payload. This causes the possibility that you will lose all the data in computer. Because if you do not realize the infection of data destroying virus, for example W32/Klez virus, which are now spreading widely.

To check the virus infection, it is necessary to detect by anti-virus software with updated the latest version of virus detect data files. Even you do not doubt, there is a possibility that your computer infected by virus unconsciously. Therefore, we recommend you to check it again.

Information on anti-virus software (Japanese)

Computer Virus Incident Reports for May, 2002 (full report)

Inquiry: IPA Security Center (IPA/ISEC)
                (ISEC: Information technology SEcurity Center) 
              TEL: +81-3-5978-7508 FAX: +81-3-5978-7518
              E-mail: isec-info@ipa.go.jp
              Emergency call: +81-3-5978-7509
              URL: http://www.ipa.go.jp/security/index-e.html