Squashing bugs and breaking systems

Don't nix that Windows file, even if your friend tells you to--it's a hoax. Also: Klez worm travels incognito.

CNET News staff

May 17, 2002 2:06 p.m. PT

Don't nix that Windows file, even if your best friend tells you to--the e-mail virus warning is a hoax. The hardy Klez worm, bombarding e-mail in-boxes for weeks, has now found a way to travel incognito. Hacker exploits travel far and wide, and come in the oddest forms--sometimes as Jell-O molds.

Hoax tells people to nix Windows file
A fake advisory warns users of the file "jdbgmgr.exe," purportedly a virus that damages a victim's computer system two weeks after first infecting the PC.
May 16, 2002

Are you the Klez monster?
The worm's ploy of forging the sender on infected e-mails has antivirus software on servers accusing the wrong users of spreading the virus.
May 16, 2002

This hacker's got the gummy touch
A Japanese researcher shows that fingerprint readers can be fooled by a fake finger created with gelatin sporting prints lifted from a glass, for example.
May 16, 2002

Microsoft releases monster IE patch
The software giant called three of the flaws critical, but only one of them would allow an attacker or a worm to run a program on the victim's computer.
May 15, 2002