Virus Writers Take Crack At Microsoft's .Net

Security experts have received the first virus directed at Microsoft's .Net Intermediate Language. W32.Donut is being called a "concept virus" by antivirus firms.

Symantec Corp. says the virus is interesting because it's the first one capable of infecting .Net files. In an advisory, antivirus maker McAfee.com Corp. says W32.Donut is not likely to become widespread and has deemed the virus low risk because it hasn't been installed on many machines yet. The security firm says in order for a machine to become infected, .Net must be running on Windows 2000 or XP.

There is a 10% chance that infected systems will display the message ".NET.dotNET by Benny/29A" which reads, "This cell has been infected by dotNET virus!" within a dialogue box.

Virus removal instructions can be found at McAfee's Web site.