Yesterday, Symantec, the folks behind Norton AntiVirus, said they expected to have a fix for the MelissaW virus by today — and they have.
They’ve posted new Mac definitions for the virus, according to Kent Hull, technical account manager of Symantec’s Platinum Group. You can download the defs from Symantec’s Web site.
Application service provider Messagelabs.com reports of the new Melissa code infections contained in Mac Office 2001 Word documents. The outbreak would seem to have started in the U.K., with one report coming in from South Africa as well.
The document apparently reads:
Subject: Important Message From (person's name)
Body: Here is the document you asked for .. don't show anyone else ;-)
A file enclosure called Anniv.DOC (or some variant thereof) is included with the message.
Norton AntiVirus is Symantec’s anti-virus software. It’s sold as a standalone product or as part of the SystemWorks product suite. See our Oct. 25 story for details.