Damage from Emanuel virus becoming more serious

Damage from the Emanuel virus, derived from the Navidad virus, is becoming more serious. Ahnlab revealed Sunday that the number of calls reporting the virus since Nov. 8 had reached upwards of 70 per day.

The virus resends all e-mails on a victims account with attached files until the virus is eradicated.

Moreover, if the attached file (EMANUEL.EXE) is opened, the application file becomes infected and the program will not function.

The virus can paralyze a company's mail server by inundating it with thousands of e-mails. An office worker identified only as Chun received more than 400 mail messages at once, hindering him from opening mail needed to carry out his duties.

Www.ahnlab.com and hauri.co.kr are currently providing vaccines through the Internet. Assistant manager Hwang Mi-Kyung of Ahnlab stated that any mail with an attached file EMANUEL.EXE should be deleted.

Moon Kwon-Mo africa7@donga.com