Norman has today issued a high alert for the new, extremely fast-spreading email worm named Sobig.F. This is one example of several new fast-spreading worms seen on the Internet the latest week.

Norway is today the most infected Sobig.F country with 33% of all reported incidents, USA is second with 30% and Nederland’s with 11% (information from Messagelabs.com).

Norman now alerts all users to be specially careful when they are connected to the Internet.

“Today is the day to update all your security programs and get the latest patches for your operating system and applications. Be suspicious of all communication from unknown and even known persons. If you receive emails with attachments from people you don’t know do not openthe attachment", says Steinar Wigtil, Director of R&D. “The Blaster and Nachi worms, however, do not spread using emails, but by exploiting a security hole in Windows. You must therefore ensure that your operating system is updated/patched to be secure from these threats", he continues.

“Norman has registered a lot of infected users who needed help to get their systems up running again. Most of these infections are unnecessary accidents where better internal routines and more careful behaviour would have prevented the problem", says Eirik Amundsen Support Director of Norman.

Norman Virus Control (NVC) with definitions files from today, Tuesday, August 19th 2003 or later detects all known variants of these new worms. Users are encouraged to update their NVC installation with the new definition files immediately. More information about these worms is available on Norman’s web site www.norman.com

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