 May 17, 2005 Ketchikan, Alaska - Ketchikan Public Utilities began notifying its customers today that beginning this past weekend, a number of customers started contacting them about receiving large quantities of German-language "Spam" e-mail. According to Michael McNally, customers were asking whether KPU could do anything about the spam e-mail. Michael McNally wrote in a message distributed to KPUNET customers Tuesday, "Network security analysts tell us that this e-mail is being sent by thousands of machines which have been infected by a new version of the W32.Sober worm, which attacks unprotected computers running Microsoft Windows operating systems. McNally said to their customers, "We ask that you be patient while we work to put new blocking measures in place to stop (or at least reduce) the flow of this German-language Spam." KPU reminds people that all unprotected computers are potentially vulnerable to a wide variety of threats whenever they are connected to the Internet. McNally said, "Every week we have to track down customer computers that have become infected, including some which have been hijacked by parties that are using them to send Spam. Computers running Microsoft Windows are especially at risk, as those computers are targetted far more frequently than computers running other operating systems such as MacOS, BSD, or Linux." KPU's advice: Don't let your computer get infected! If you're not sure how to protect a computer that's connected to the Internet, you can make a very good start by taking three simple steps that will protect your computer from the most common risks: 1) Use a firewall to prevent
unauthorized connections to your computer. If you are running Windows and want more specific information, Microsoft has a guide with advice on how to follow the advice above.
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