David, Thank you for bringing this virus to our attention for like you said many many genealogy sites are employing Adobe Acrobat files - like one of my sites, State of CT websites, etc... This virus is called: VBSpeachyPDF@mm. It is a worm type of virus that disguises itself as a *.pdf file - one created with Adobe Acrobat. However, it functions only when opened in the **full** version of Adobe Acrobat not with Adobe Reader. It is included in Norton Anti-Virus definitions and I suspect in the other AV programs. At the moment it appears those with only the freebie Acrobat Reader on-board have nothing to fear with it - only those with the full blown Adobe Acrobat program - like me. :( Here is more about it. http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/vbs.peachypdf@mm.html With all the viruses running rampant these days I highly recommend everyone enable their Anti-Virus Auto Protection, enable their E-mail Protection, up-date their AV programs once a week and scan their whole computer at least once a week. In the past 3 weeks I have received via E-mail the SirCam virus at least 18 times!!!! I have not been affect with it for religiously check every attachment I receive. But the scary part of this particular virus is that Norton E-mail Protection does not detect it as yet - Its Auto-Protection does. Norton readily admits this problem: http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/nav.nsf/docid/2001072315182006?Open&src=w I suspect the many many virus attachments I've receive came from subscribers of some of these genealogy mail lists. Now I'm not saying it came via the mail lists for RootsWeb does not allow files to be sent to the mail lists. The rash of these virus attachments came after I had posted replies on a couple of the lists. I suspect people kept copies of my messages in their Email program. They then got effected with the virus; the virus replicated itself; and it sent itself out to every E-mail address it found in the person(s) E-mail program or/and My Document folder and I was one of them - lucky me. :( Moral of the virus story is to have auto-protect ***and*** e-mail protection enabled and up-to-date!!!! --- Susan SGTAYLOR1@att.net My Genealogy Website - sgt http://home.att.net/~SGTAYLOR1/ ----------------------------------------------- USGW Mansfield, CT - http://home.att.net/~SGTAYLOR1/mansfield.html USGW New London, CT - http://home.att.net/~SGTAYLOR1/newlondon.html USGW Norwich, CT - http://home.att.net/~SGTAYLOR1/norwich.html USGW Windham, CT - http://home.att.net/~SGTAYLOR1/windham.html USGW Coordinator Plymouth Co., MA - http://www.rootsweb.com/~maplymou/ USGW Plymouth, MA - http://www.rootsweb.com/~macplymo/ ********************************************************* At 01:09 AM 8/18/01 -0600, W. David Samuelsen wrote: >Since there are some sites using PDF, this alert came through >very good source - Edupage newsletter. The virus alerts through >this newsletter are extreme rare and posted only if there is >concerns. > >NEW VIRUS SPREADS USING ACROBAT FILES >Portable Document Format (PDF) files used in Adobe Acrobat are >susceptible to an experimental virus, according to analysis by >HispaSec Sistemas head Bernardo Quinteros and Privacy Foundation >CTO Richard M. Smith. Quinteros and Smith say the virus, >Outlook.pdf, embeds itself in PDF files via Outlook. Users who >open the file with Acrobat are encouraged to click on an image >of a peach, thus releasing the virus. The e-mail addresses in >Outlook's Address Book and its folder are used to spread >Outlook.pdf. "Since PDF files are considered safe by Internet >Explorer, it means that Acrobat security holes are easy to >exploit from Web pages and HTML e-mail messages," warned Smith. >(InfoWorld.com, 8 August 2001) > > >============================== >Visit Ancestry.com for a FREE 14-Day Trial and enjoy access to the #1 >Source for Family History Online. Go to: >http://www.ancestry.com/subscribe/subscribetrial1y.asp?sourcecode=F11HB