Besides affecting companies, the worm also struck the two houses of the British Parliament - House of Commons and House of Lords. The attack forced the two houses to shut down their e-mail systems for a couple of hours. The message was noticed before lunch. Because it is based on Visual Basic script, the worm infects only computers that have Visual Basic, which is included with Windows 2000. He further advised that computer users immediately update antivirus software.
Upgrades are available at the Internet sites of various antivirus vendors.
When it first was detected, the worm also would go out to four different Internet sites and pull software from those to download on infected computers, allowing hackers to possibly break into those computers, Mangalam says. The Internet sites have been shut down. One of the companies hit by the worm was Adaco AB, a Stockholm food wholesaler with approximately 120 users. Within five minutes, the worm had infected around 800 files, including some register and system files, Bj rling says. The worm seems to have originated in the Philippines, agreed F-Secure, an antivirus software vendor in Espoo, Finland.