There is a MSN photo album worm virus widely spreading at present. The virus targets at WIN9X／NT／2000／XP. The worm automatically searches the contact lists in MSN and attempts to send a compressed package named “photos.zip”, which will infect the computer once it is accepted and opened by a user unwittingly. The virus will consume large amounts of system resources and network bandwidth, and potentially lead to file theft and other illegal attacks, greatly impacting personal computers and enterprise LANs.

In response to the highly critical worm virus, NSFOCUS' NIDS/NIPS ICEYE has delivered the prevention solution promptly. You may want to install the latest update package available from NSFOCUS update website: http://update.nsfocus.com/ (Note that you need to update both the latest rule package and the detector program. There appears a new rule No.20812 in the rule database after update. The update is only applicable to ICEYE V5.5).

ICEYE with the latest update will bring more benefits: it facilitates the administrator to identify attacks accurately and make prompt response. It also blocks the external MSN Album virus proactively and prevents it from spreading on the internal network, giving users more precious time in updating the anti-virus software and a secure and reliable network environment.

NSFOCUS security professionals suggest updating the anti-virus application at the first opportunity. The following workarounds are recommended if the update is not available:
1. Do not open casually unknown files received from MSN; If an exceptional message promts you to receive a file, confirm whether it is input by the sender manually; confirm whether an executable program is safe before it is opened; do not accept the worm file.
2. If you receive such exceptional messages, close the dialogue window and notify the sender to update the anti-virus application and detect the virus.
3. Do not open the “photos.zip” package if already accepted.

About NSFOCUS
NSFOCUS is a leading network security vendor in China that is devoted to network and system security research, as well as R&D, sales and service of high-level network security products. NSFOCUS is capable of providing IDS/IPS, remote assessment, DDoS prevention and other advanced products with internationally competitive advantages, and is the most experienced professional security service vendor in China.