I have just received about 7 messages containing the W32.Badtrans@mm.enc virus. They came in private messages as well as some that seemed to come from four different mailing lists. My guess is that the virus was dormant on the computers of many people and just woke up today. They can do that sort of thing. Once activated, I am pretty sure that the virus searches for unanswered emails sitting on the computer and then sends a reply with the same subject line. The message is BLANK when you open it. The email address has an underscore at the beginning of it. Therefore, when you try to reply (just to tell the person that they have a virus) the message will bounce back, because it is an invalid address. To reach them, you must erase the underscore. If the virus acts the same way that it did the first time around, it will have many variations. Assuming it did not change, you should NOT turn your computer off until the virus is gone. That was one way (maybe the only way) of activating it. If you have an antivirus, you should do a scan right away after opening an empty message. Then, I would go online and update my virus definitions and then scan again. There could be some new wrinkles in this awakened version of the virus. I would get new virus definitions tomorrow and the following two days also, because the antivirus company will be working hard on combatting any changes in the virus. The virus-containing messages could NOT come directly from any of the mailing lists, because it could not pass through the RootsWeb system. Since it is a reply to a message that could have originally come from a mailing list, it will have the mailing list abbreviation in the subject line. The virus-containing messages will mostly begin with Re: or the Re: may appear right after the mailing list abbreviation. I received one that did not have an Re: in the subject line. Since the messages will mostly contain Re:, you should be cautious about opening any of these today, whether they seem to be coming from a mailing list or someone you know. The chances are excellent that you will not recognize the subject, because the original message to the mailing list, in many cases, was not sent recently. Even if the subject sounds interesting, if you recognize it from a month or more ago, don't open it. If you sent private messages to people quite awhile ago that are just getting answered today, don't open them. Instead, write to the people to find out if they sent you an answer today. Some people don't use their computer everyday. I imagine that the virus will just wait until the next time they start up. Therefore, you may have to be careful about these Re: messages for a few days. If you WRITE a message, it should not be infected, even if your computer is. In personal correspondence, ask the person to choose a new subject when they write back, or they could add the date to the subject line, or at least they should erase the Re: before they send a reply to you. You will feel safer if the message lacks the Re: If you haven't sent any messages to mail lists, you will not have any of them sitting of people's computers, so you won't get viruses sent back to you as replies. I write a lot, so I get a lot. My recollection is that if you use Netscape as your email program, you can get the virus, but it can't send out virus-containing emails to other people. Good luck. Cliff