PRESS RELEASE  
Oslo, 20 August 2003  

The explosive distribution of the computer virus Sobig.F that has ravaged the Internet, several organization's networks and stand-alone PCs the latest days, has resultet in enormous amounts of email traffic, as well as lots and lots of deleting of emails.

The background for this explosive spreading is that the worm repeatedly sends itself to the address lists found on the infected computer(s). This type of action will especially impact e-mailservers and the communication infrastructure.

The reason why that the antivirus program cleans the worm that is an attachment to the email. However, the antivirus program does not stop the email itself. The result is that the email (cleaned) will be sent to the recipients in large numbers.

Norman Data Defense Systems recommends that you combine the antivirus and firewall programs with a spam tool to get the optimum protection in the light of the latets days' outburst. If you do not have any spam solution that handles this problem, we recommend a gateway solution like Norman Spam Control to stop the spreading that is interrupting your infrastructure, and that also reduce the administrate efforts to get rid of all these and other annoying emails.

For further information, please contact

Steinar Wigtil Director of R&D, tel. +47 67 10 97 00 +47 mob: +47 41 53 97 29 Norman ASA, Audun Lødemel, tel.+47 671 097 79 / +47 934 465 31