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Antivirus firms on Monday warned of a new mass-mailing computer virus that has gained a foothold in a large number of PCs by masquerading as an e-mail error, CNET reports.

The virus, dubbed Novarg, arrives in an in-box with one of several different random subject lines such as "Mail Delivery System," "Test" or "Mail Transaction Failed." The body of the e-mail contains an executable file and a statement such as: "The message contains Unicode characters and has been sent as a binary attachment."

"It's huge," said Vincent Gullotto, vice president of security software maker Network Associates' antivirus emergency response team. "We have it as a high-risk outbreak."

In one hour, Network Associates itself received 19,500 e-mails bearing the virus from 3,400 unique Internet addresses, Gullotto said. One large telecommunications company had already shut down its e-mail gateway to stop the virus.

The virus is also spreading through p2p-networks.



Had such emails today so be careful.