The Novarg virus has flooded our inbox. This virus is particularly infectious and contains the following message.

"The message cannot be represented in 7-bit ASCII encoding and has been sent as a binary attachment."

You need to open the attachment to get infected. As the message may appear to come from someone you know, so do not assume that messages from friends, relatives and colleagues are safe. The attachment also masquerades as zip or text file.

Make sure you have an up-to-date virus checker and your system has been fully updated. You should be cautious of any email attachment, regardless of who it appears to be from. We have a summary of what to avoid here.

More information on the virus is available from Symantec.