Thanks for the wakeup call, blueface. I had friend who’s computer was important for his business. His computer contracted the opaserv virus a couple of months ago. Trashed his hard disk. Couldn’t boot; couldn’t recover any data. Two other friends in the last week have gotten a Yaha virus…
One thing that the article above didn’t mention was that this virus runs a key logger to steal passwords/credit card info/etc. A quick test is to check your running processes for iservc.exe (Ctl-Alt-Del for Win98; Ctl-Alt-Esc? for Win2000/XP).
Here’s a link w/more detailed info about Fizzer:
trendmicro.com/vinfo/virusen … M_FIZZER.A
Here’s my 2 & : (hmmm… why does the “&” show as a cent sign when editing -> ASCII 162? but i diverge 
)
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Update your virus definitions
If you don’t have a anti-virus software, a good free one is AVG
www.grisoft.com
Or buy one like F-Prot, Kasperksy, Norton Anti-virus, PC-Cillin, etc. It’s worth it!
Make the recovery diskettes. Do a full scan. If you have a virus that it can’t heal you might have to go to the home page and download a fix. Generally you will restart into Safe Mode (hold F8 during startup before the Windows screen comes up) and then run the tool. -
Get a firewall
You can get a free version of ZoneAlarm from download.com.com
It’s fairly intuitive. If you’re not sure about whether to let something access the internet, just choose “No” (don’t give it access), but don’t have it remember your choice unless you’re pretty sure. Most of the situations will be fairly obvious (e.g. you open web browser and you’ll see sthg like “Allow IE to access the internet?” You choose “Yes” and have it remember that so it won’t ask you again when you open Internet Explorer. -
Run Windows Update to update Windows
If it’s not on your Start Menu, open a browser -> Tools\Windows Update
Especially important if you use Outlook! But using old versions of IE and simply going to a malicious website can infect your computer. -
Disable any network shares when you’re not using them.
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BACKUP! If you have backups, a virus or a dead HD won’t cause you so much harm. I guess the easiest/cheapest would be to get a CDRW and copy your important files to a rewriteable. You can also go to Start/Help and search on “backups” if you want to do a more sophisticated backup.
Good luck everybody. Might want to turn off Kazaa for a while as it seems to be spreading this new virus. Also be careful of logging in & using passwords on public computers.
Oh yeah, wear a mask 
And smile. It WOULD make them wonder what you’re up to :?