By Terry Dean

I rarely talk about subjects outside of marketing, but this one has become so vital that it must be mentioned as a warning.

Over the past week a few customers have emailed me telling me they received a virus coming from my email address of Terry@bizpromo.com.

Well, I should actually say it was more than a few. I've received over 20 messages like this in the past week.

This terrified me of course. So I made sure my anti-virus software updated...and then did multiple full PC checks on my system for viruses.

Nothing.

So I started a search to find out what in the world was going on. How could I be transferring viruses without even having one myself?

The answer came.

I wasn't. The viruses these people had received didn't come from me at all. It appears the virus in question has a special capability which has only been used to a small degree before.

This virus, in case you didn't know, is called the Klez.H virus. If you want to get technical, it's actually called a "worm" because of the way it spreads from system to system.

If your system gets infected, it sends e-mail messages with randomly named attachments and subject fields to everyone in your address book and ICQ database.

What makes this one more dangerous is it uses a randomly chosen email address in the from section. It searches the infected computer inside of Outlook Express for email addresses to use.

So if an infected computer has YOUR email address inside of the Outlook Express mailbox, the next time it mails out it could appear to look like it's coming from you.

So you could get emails from people saying you sent them a virus, even if you don't have one on your system.

You could also receive the virus as an attachment on an email with ANYONE in the from address. It could appear to be from your best friend, your family, your tech support guy, or even me.

Personally, I'm receiving around a dozen emails a day with the virus attached. Norton Anti-Virus deletes them on their way in, but they sure are annoying.

Here are just a few of the subject lines I've seen come in with the virus on them:

Worm Klez.E Immunity
W32.Elkern removal tools
A very funny website
1996 Microsoft Corporation
Hello,honey
Initing esdi
Editor of PC Magazine.
Some questions
Telephone number
the Garden of Eden
Undeliverable mail
japanese lass' sexy pictures
look,my beautiful girl friend

The body of the emails even sometimes look like friendly messages...with the "Immunity" ones warning you about the virus and claiming to be software to protect you from it. Instead, they infect you.

By the way, quick tip, most people sign their real emails with their name at their bottom. I always do. So any email that appears to be from me without having Terry at the bottom of it is a fake.

Some of the new media has been reporting up to 7 percent of computers worldwide are currently infected with this virus...which is causing it to spread like crazy.

If you haven't done so recently, now would be a good time to make sure your Anti-Virus software is up to date...and to do a full system scan.

If you detect this virus, then Symantex has a removal tool available at their web site:

http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.klez.removal.tool.html

Not Only is this Virus Raging, But There is a Common Virus Hoax Now Appearing...

I've received quite a few messages letting me know I could be infected with a JDBGMGR.EXE virus. They always appear to be friendly messages and ones which have been forwarded on to me.

They say you may already be infected or I've detected your system is infected.

The email then goes on to say none of the anti-virus software programs can detect it, so you could have received it without ever knowing.

The email tells you to search for a file by the name of JDBGMGR.EXE...and most likely you'll find it.

You'll find it because it's a Java debugger program running in Explorer. If you listen to the email and delete this so-called virus, then you could potentially have problems with Java on web sites you visit.

If you've deleted it because of one of these messages, then simply upgrade to the newest version of Internet Explorer. Your problem is solved.

During the past month we've dealt with hackers, thieves (stealing products and selling them), viruses, and so on. The Internet is a dangerous place.

If someone tells you you'll never have a problem or everything is just a bed of roses, they're obviously lying or smoking something.

Internet business is just better and more profitable than every other possibility...