Kaspersky Lab warns users against Email-Worm.Win32.Nyxem.e, which potentially poses a serious threat. This malicious program spreads via the Internet as an attachment to infected messages, and also in files placed on open network resources. It's estimated that hundreds of thousands computers around the world are infected, and the number of infected machines is continuing to increase.

Nyxem.e's payload is triggered on the third of every month, when the worm will destroy data saved on the victim machine. The worm regularly checks the system time. When the system data is the third of the month, 30 minutes after the victim machine is booted, Nyxem will delete information from common file formats, replacing data with a meaningless set of symbols.

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