Fizzer attack
For the past week, we have been getting the Fizzer virus on my colleague's PC. Is there a way we can stop it? A firewall hasn't been able to help. Simon Fisher

Jack Schofield replies: Fizzer (or Sparky) is a Windows worm that appeared on May 8. It is spreading quickly. It can be transmitted by KaZaA file sharing, or email ("I thought this was interesting..." etc). It includes an IRC (Internet Relay Chat) backdoor, an AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) backdoor, a tool for mounting DoS (Denial of Service) attacks, a Trojan and an HTTP server. The aim is to take over and use your PC for nefarious purposes, rather than damage it. If a PC is infected, you should disconnect it and remove the worm, or at least use a firewall to block all outgoing traffic from IRC, AIM and KaZaA. (Since KaZaA can use a range of ports, it may be more convenient to uninstall it.)

The firewall should obviously block unwanted incoming traffic, but watch out for the IRC backdoor using ports 2018-2021, since this allows your PC to be controlled remotely. The worm's main component is the ISERVC.EXE file. A quick check for infection is to go to C: in Windows Explorer, press F3 and search for this name. There is good information on removing W32/Fizzer@MM at F-Secure and McAfee. F-Secure provides a free disinfection tool.

More Kak
Whenever I open an email from a certain friend, I get a message asking if I want to allow an ActiveX control to run. To be on the safe side, I always click No, which doesn't seem to affect the message. Alistair Scott

JS : Your friend's PC has a virus infection, which I suspect is KakWorm. It uses a security hole your friend should have patched in 1999. See www.microsoft.com/technet for the fix, but Microsoft rolled it into later security updates. Without the fix, the worm can infect a PC without you running the attachment, so your friend is a hazard to less careful users. Symantec has a tutorial that takes you through removing this and other worms, including Klez.

MouseKeys
I have developed RSI and would like to do away with the mouse, or at least restrict its use to the minimum. How do I move the cursor using the keyboard only? Brian Kelsey

JS: Look at Microsoft's built-in accessibility features, which are designed to help the disabled. To use the keyboard instead of the mouse, go to Start|Settings|Control Panel|Accessibility Options, click the Mouse tab, and tick the box for Use MouseKeys. As part of the certification process for Windows desktop applications, Microsoft requires that software publishers "provide documented keyboard access to all features," so you could consider switching to Certified for Windows programs.

Stuck
I backed up my photos, saved in MGI PhotoSuite III, onto CD. When I tried to open them, I found they'd all been saved as .pza files and there is no way can I get into them. I discovered that MGI had been taken over by Roxio, so I bought the latest Roxio PhotoSuite 5 Platinum Edition but it won't open the files. I contacted their support site but they seem unable or unwilling to help. Name withheld

JS: The .pza extension indicates an MGI PhotoSuite Album file, which is only supported in versions II, III and 4. Ask your friends to search their old computer magazine cover CDs as you may well find a free copy that way. MGI PhotoSuite III was also given away with some Packard-Bell PCs, Samsung and Vivitar digital cameras, Logitech webcams and other products so there should be unwanted copies around.

Backchat

· David Wood asked about sending SMS messages by email. He reports that he has found a better way than the ones we suggested: "Tiscali allows 10 free texts-via-email per day if you are registered, even if it is their pay-as-you-go service."

· Is dust a problem? Steve Downing, a systems admin at the University of Liverpool, says that in his experience with hundreds of PCs, "both CPU fan failure and dust build-up are problems that need attention. To clear dust, I just use a brush on the boards and vacuum around the power fans, case and airways."

· Last week, I published Smiling Crow's correction of the prices I gave for hard disk space. In doing so, I inadvertently passed on his mistake, which was to give the price per MB (megabyte) instead of per GB (gigabyte). At least it gave a few people a laugh...