Recently a new computer virus, literally translated as "Panda burning joss sticks," is spreading across China on the Internet.

An unnamed Internet user whose computer system was damaged by the virus claims he would like to offer US$100,000 to "arrest" the creator of the virus. An Internet cafe owner said all his 900 computers have been rendered useless, resulting in a loss of 300,000 yuan, over US$38,000.
 
The spread of the virus started at the end of last year. Jiangmin Anti-Virus Software Company and the National Virus Emergency Response Center have already issued warnings, but it hasn't caused enough attention among computer users. At the beginning of this year, the virus spreaded at a surprising speed. The search term "Panda burning joss sticks" has entered the top 20 on China's largest search engine Baidu, with several tens of thousands of hits daily.

The virus will infect all executable files ending in .exe and other types of files, including HTML. It will add virus code to web pages. If the computer of the system administrator for a web server is infected, it may pass the virus to the web server and cause users who browse the server to become infected. It can be spread through hard drives, external hard drives, shared folders and weak password systems. It can also use the autofill function on Windows. The panda virus has hit Guangdong and Shandong provinces especially hard.

Free anti-virus software is offered on Jiangmin's website. Computer users in need can install the software to prevent an attack by the virus.

(CRI January 24, 2007)