The North's Department of Education has warned senior staff to be on the lookout for a Christmas computer virus. The alert was issued yesterday by the Department's information technology security officer, who has instructed her staff not to open the e-mail containing the virus.
"We have recently received a report concerning a new virus called VBS/Grate-B," she told staff. It arrives in an e-mail with the subject line 'Merry Christmas' with no body text. The attachment is called greetings.txt.vbs.
"This is the ideal time of year for virus writers to release new malicious code disguised as e-mail seasonal greetings. The links, if followed, will point to the sites where malicious code is automatically downloaded and executed.
"If you receive anything resembling the above, do not click or open any attachments," she added.