Last month I got hit with a worm virus called opaserv. I didn't get it from an email. As near as the folks at Symantec could figure, I got it from clicking on a website link. The virus was written into the web URL! This happened Oct. 2nd, the day before I was to hit the road for a race. I downloaded a tool from the Symantec website to remove the virus using one of my other laptops to do the download and copied the tool to a floppy to use in the infected laptop. The tool seemed to work, but I traveled that weekend with two laptops, just in case....

Three weeks later, again the day before I'm getting ready to travel to a race, I all of a sudden have the opaserv worm virus. This time it wasn't in just one file, it was in four separate files on my primary laptop! This virus looks for networks to spread itself. The race I was working that weekend in Las Vegas was a national event where I network using a LAN card into an ethernet hub which basically gives my laptop full access to the hard drives on three other laptops. It also gives the virus access to those other laptops. I couldn't hook my laptop up to the network until I was sure the virus was off of my machine.

Getting rid of the virus for good took me two days and three phone calls to the Symantec live help phone line. I kept removing the infected files, and they kept coming back. Turns out, the first time I got the virus, it disabled my firewall, and I hadn't noticed that. Every time I logged on, the source of the virus was sending it to my laptop with success because my firewall was down. The fatherless child who was doing this to me was doing it on purpose, and given the timing of the attacks, it was their desire to not only shut my computer down but damage the system that the people I work for use to do all of our work.

....if I ever find out who was doing this, there will be a fight!

Bob