I will not normally want anyone to post virus notices to the list, however, since I've spent all morning helping a chain of some 50 folks get rid of this one I know it is not a hoax. That is the problem, most of the ones that are reported on lists are hoaxes. If you get an email with a subject like "Hey You!, here are some pictures..." or anything like that, even if the email address is one you know. Do not open it! Just delete it. This is a worm virus that takes someone's email address book and sends out email to some of the people in your list with your email address but it is sending an attachment usually named "mine.exe" to them. You will never know about it until your friends send you nasty letters about why you sent them a virus. If you don't have virus protection, you can have a free version at http://antivirus.cai.com/ The best defense is to have a real time virus program running (look in the "tray" of your Win98 system in the lower right hand corner of the screen. That usually protects against an infection even if you do open a worm virus. You must download upgrades to your virus program often or it will be out of date as there are some 2,000 new variants and new virus' hitting us every month. That figure varies with each report but the thing is... it only takes one to knock your research in the garbage... If you open the email that I described you may destroy your hard disk. This appears to be a destructive virus, meaning that it actually makes files and/or your hard disk unusable. Ron McCandless