Recently a new computer virus, literally translated as "Panda
burning joss sticks," is spreading across China on the
Internet.
An unnamed Internet user whose computer system was damaged by
the virus claims he would like to offer US$100,000 to "arrest" the
creator of the virus. An Internet cafe owner said all his 900
computers have been rendered useless, resulting in a loss of
300,000 yuan, over US$38,000.
?
The spread of the virus started at the end of last year. Jiangmin
Anti-Virus Software Company and the National Virus Emergency
Response Center have already issued warnings, but it hasn't caused
enough attention among computer users. At the beginning of this
year, the virus spreaded at a surprising speed. The search term
"Panda burning joss sticks" has entered the top 20 on China's
largest search engine Baidu, with several tens of thousands of hits
daily.
The virus will infect all executable files ending in .exe and
other types of files, including HTML. It will add virus code to web
pages. If the computer of the system administrator for a web server
is infected, it may pass the virus to the web server and cause
users who browse the server to become infected. It can be spread
through hard drives, external hard drives, shared folders and weak
password systems. It can also use the autofill function on Windows.
The panda virus has hit Guangdong and Shandong provinces especially
hard.
Free anti-virus software is offered on Jiangmin's website.
Computer users in need can install the software to prevent an
attack by the virus.
(CRI January 24, 2007)
