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News Release

Symantec Discovers New Computer Worm Infecting Thousands

Corporations Worldwide Infected by VBS.LoveLetter.A

CUPERTINO, Calif. - May 4, 2000

What:
Researchers at the Symantec AntiVirus Research Center have discovered VBS.LoveLetter.A, an extremely fast-spreading computer worm that uses mIRC and Microsoft Outlook to e-mail itself as an attachment.

Characteriscs of infection:
VBS.LoveLetter.A is an Internet worm that uses Microsoft Outlook to spread itself as an attachment with the subject line "ILOVEYOU" along with an attachment called "LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.TXT.vbs."

Payload:
Preliminary finding indicate that the worm sends itself to all addresses in the computer user's Outlook address book causing mail servers to clog.

The worm will infect files with the following extensions: vbs, vbe, je, jse, css, wsh, sct, hta, jpg, jpeg, mp3, and mp2.

Additionally, it will delete the following files:

MSKernel32.vbs in the Windows system directory
Win32DLL.vbs in the Windows directory
LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.TXT.vbs in the Windows System directory
WinFAT32.EXE in the Internet download directory
WIN-BUGSFIX.EXE in the Internet download directory
Script.ini in the mIRC directory

Recommendations/Protection:
SARC recommends administrators filter for the attachment name and subject line immediately.

Symantec Antivirus Research Center:
SARC is one of the industry's largest dedicated team of virus experts. With offices located in the United States, Japan, Australia, and the Netherlands, the sun never sets on SARC. The center's mission is to provide swift, global responses to computer virus threats, proactively research and develop technologies that eliminate such threats, and educate the public on safe computing practices. As new computer viruses appear, SARC develops identification and detection for these viruses, and provides either a repair or delete operation, thus keeping users protected against the latest virus threats.

About Symantec
Symantec is the world leader in providing solutions to help individuals and enterprises assure the security, availability, and integrity of their information. Headquartered in Cupertino, Calif., Symantec has operations in more than 40 countries. More information is available at www.symantec.com.

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FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENT: This press release contains forward-looking statements. There are certain important factors that could cause Symantec's future development efforts to differ materially from those anticipated by some of the statements made above. Among these are the anticipation of the growth of certain market segments, the positioning of Symantec's products in those segments, the competitive environment in the software industry, new security threats, dependence on other products, changes to operating systems and product strategy by vendors of operating systems, and the importance of new Symantec products. Additional information concerning those and other factors is contained in the "Risk Factors" section of the company's annual report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended April 2, 1999.

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