You should be alert during the next few days. Do not open any message with
an attachment entitled “POSTCARD,” regardless of who sent it to you. It is
a virus which opens A POSTCARD IMAGE, which ‘burns’ the whole hard disc C of
your computer. This virus will be received from someone who has your e-mail
address in his/her contact list. If you receive a mail called" POSTCARD," even though sent to you by a
friend, do not open it.! This includes all cards, too. Shut down your
computer immediately.
This is the worst virus announced by CNN. It has been classified by
Microsoft as the most destructive virus ever. This virus was discovered by
McAfee yesterday, and there is no repair yet for this kind of virus. This
virus simply destroys the Zero Sector of the Hard Disc, where the vital
information is kept.
Maybe the only way to help right now is forwarding one of these emails (without opening them) to virus (at) avast (dot) com for analysis and detection improvement.
Personally I never send email alerts about possible viruses as they are an everyday occurrence, just the flavour changes, so your security procedures are what will keep you safe not alerts like this.
Never open attachments or click links in unsolicited emails. Even if they supposedly come from family/friend/colleague as it is too easy to fake the from address. People with infected systems may be sending out email and that will use their email address book, so it could be that that family member, friend, or colleague’s system is infected.
So it might be POSTCARD one day “I can’t believe the image I saw of you on the Internet” tomorrow, treat them all with the same degree of common sense and never open attachments or click links in unsolicited emails/IMs, etc. check, check, check.