The first signs of the W32.Mixor.Q worm were discovered on December 29, 2006. The worm modifies the victim's computer so that it automatically runs and downloads files from a website. The worm then attempts to spread itself by sending itself out to email addresses gathered from the infected computer. The emails sent by the W32.Mixor.Q worm typically contain some sort of New Year's greeting in the subject line. An example is "Happy New Year!" but, this may vary.
The email also contains an attachment that when opened by the recipient will also infect the recipient's computer. The most common attachment name is "postcard.exe", but other variations may exist, including "greeting card.exe" and "greeting postcard.exe". This worm will also download and execute a Trojan horse that may attempt to download and execute other malicious programs.
I find it amusing that Symantec make a song and dance about this when they weren't even the first to detect or protect against this infection. I regularly use the Prevx File / Virus info pages and couldn't help but notice they were already protecting against this latest variant almost 2 weeks in advance (14th Dec)?! http://virusinfo.prevx.com/viruscenter.asp?returnpage=default&GRP=4820000010
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