According to staff reporter Dean Takahashi in today's Wall St. Journal, the CIH virus originating from Taiwan and spreading through e-mail attachments is scheduled to trigger on Monday April 26 with variants to strike on June 26.

"It will leave your PC dead," said Vincent Gullotto, antivirus manager for Network Associates. Article claims updated antivirus program is best protection.

Question for forum: My Norton Antivirus definitions does not list CIH. I will call Symantec about this. In the meantime, does anyone know if this virus goes by another name in the Norton definition list?

I'm sure this virus has been the subject of other threads which I haven't seen. Apologies in advance.

-- Puddintame (achillesg@hotmail.com), April 22, 1999

Answers

Warning: Before scanning with Norton antivirus, go to this Symantec site to read the release on this virus:

http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/kill_cih.html

Link to Symantec news item disable virus in memory before scanning

-- Puddintame (achillesg@hotmail.com), April 22, 1999.

I was just on CNN talking about CIH. I wouldn't worry as much about this; it's been around for a year and most virus packages have been upgraded. One variant, BTW, strikes every month on the 26th.

-- Declan McCullagh (declan@y2kculture.com), April 22, 1999.

Can I just turn my computer off April 26th? Will that help?

-- Helen (sstaten@fullnet.net), April 22, 1999.