Is this a virus??

[Broohaha]

A friend of mine (without an antivirus prog installed) got a wierd message in Outlook Express. When she clicked on it, it didnt prompt her and ask if she wanted to open the file, save to disk, etc. Apparently, it immediately opened up a notepad file with the following written in it:

FILE QUARANTINED
----------------

Antigen for Exchange removed alt.bat since it
was found to match the FILE FILTER= *.bat file filter.


Isn't that strange? I'm still confused why it didn't give her a prompt. Anyway, the notepad document looks like something designed to give somebody a false sense of security. I haven't restarted the computer yet. Right now I'm using an online virus scanner to see if it picks anything up.

Does anybody have any suggestions about how to handle this? Is this just a hoax to make somebody worried? Or is it a real virus with that notepad file a tool to make somebody think there's no need to worry?

Just so you know, the sender was "a3jp" or something weird like that and the subject line was "Hello,howyou" so it looks like one of those typical virusey messages.

Thanks for any help anybody can give.

 

[Fireman]

Searching on the web it looks like maybe the Klez virus. It appears as though you cought it before any damage, but do the scans to be sure.

 

[corkyg]

People who run without an active AV program these days are simply asking for trouble. I agree with Fireman - it has all the earmarks of a Klez variant. Once the worm is resident, it makes AV scans almost useless. Your friend needs to protect herself before, not after.

And while on the subject - any good AV program will provide weekly updates on virus data - if it doesn't, find one that does.