Recently a new virus has popped up, labeled ‘Duqu’. The virus is similar in nature to the stuxnet virus which caused serious disturbance to Iran’s nuclear program some time ago. Duqu is thought to have been stolen code or created by those responsible for stuxnet. Determining where the virus came from is an ongoing investigation.

The important thing now is that it’s working its way into systems and the virus has been linked to a Microsoft Word bug. Microsoft Corp. acknowledged the bug was previously unknown and that hackers are using the flaw to infect computer systems. Microsoft is working to create a patch for the bug and will likely issue it immediately when ready.

Not surprisingly, the infection is carried mostly through email attachments. The virus is downloaded with corrupted MS Word documents at which time the virus has the ability to take control of the system, multiply and eventually search for data. To what end the data is searched we’ll leave to your imagination, but preliminary thoughts center around disruption to governmental networks.

As of now, there is no fix for this variant of virus Microsoft has issued a temporary fix and despite what the goal is of the infection, home users need to be aware that they can be infected. We are recommending users simply do not open or accept MS Word attachments at this time. There are a number of other ways to receive files that contain all the data a Word document does. For now, we suggest you use them.

Remember even if you know the user sending you the Word document, you can’t be sure they weren’t somehow infected prior to sending it. Use extreme caution when dealing with MS Word documents that are not yours.

Source Reuters

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