Hundreds of computer users in Bermuda have been under siege by a worm computer virus posing as a pornographic picture attachment.

And there are fears that hahaha ysexyfun.net could infect even more hard drives over the weekend if users are not careful which attachments they open in their e-mails.

The e-mail virus is known as the W95.Hybris.gen and was first let loose on the world in September 2000. It attaches itself as an attachment to outgoing e-mails without the sender knowing.

There were no reports in Bermuda until late December, but in the past week some companies have been inundated with the e-mails promising raunchy pictures of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

In the middle of December, Internet provider Logic issued a warning about the virus, but it is still spreading.

Logic's advice is: "Please do a manual scan (you might need to update your virus definition file) of your PC or this virus to prevent it from spreading any further.'' Logic also advises anyone affected by the virus to log on to http:/www.symantec.com or call 292 HELP.

In December Symantec, a virus detection company, updated the threat of the worm to computer users to 4, a high threat, due to the increase in world-wide infections.

W95.Hybris is a worm which was discovered in late September 2000. Reports of infection were minimum in October, but started to be common in November around the world.

The message may include the text "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs'' and the attachment may have one of several different names including anpo porn(.scr, atchim.exe, branca de neve.scr, dunga.scr, dwarf4you.exe, enano porno.exe, joke.exe, midgets.scr, sexy virgin.scr.

The virus is also known as W32.Hybris.gen, W32.Hybris.22528.dr, W32/Hybris.gen yM, I-Worm.Hybris.

Symantec has given the virus a threat assessment of distribution: high, damage: low, wild: medium.

When the worm attachment is executed, i.e. opened, the main file, the WSOCK32.DLL, will be modified and this will give the worm the ability to attach itself to all outbound e-mail. An attachment will appear with a random file name, but the file name extension will be either exe or scr.

To remove the file Symantec advised the use of Norton AntiVirus to repair the WSOCK32.DLL. Other files detected as W95.Hybris contain only the virus body and must be deleted.