Fortunately, I don't have this virus, I was just wondering how they come up with the name. Does Tanat mean something? I can find info on what it does, I just want to know why it goes by so many names. What improvement was there over bugbear.a? It appears the same vulnerability is exploited. Just curious.

The individual Antivirus companies give the names, as you'll see one virus referred to by sometimes many different names, but they may be similar, so as to avoid confusion.

What I would like to know is why different av companies give different names for the virus...when looking for removal instructions it becomes confusing...especially when doing manual removal....lol...with 70,000 or so viruses out there you would think it would be easier if they all called them the same....sure would make my job easier. Stlhaunted Yes the same vulnerability is still exploited but i find a bit difference with the "b" varient...unless you can quickly get off the infected email that ran the virus in the first place...by quickly b4 the OE or outlook is fully loaded get off the email (using the arrow up or dn keys) to get unstuck off the infected email in order to disable the preview pane...I found the virus continued to re-infect the local computer....I had to be quick tho...then disable preview pane and then be able to delete the infected messages. I also found that symantec's bugbear removal tool DID NOT detect virus in the email that was already downloaded to the local machine. With the preview pane enabled in outlook or OE without the IE updates...the virus auto runs. Once I was able to delete the infected emails...and empty deleted items folder...and run the bugbear fix tool again.. all was well but a real pain. If ppl dont wanna get the updates for windows...THEN AT LEAST DISABLE THE PREVIEW PANE. Then you can at least toss the emails you get from ppl you dont know in the deleted items folder and empty it from there...virus gone... sorry for rambling but that is my input on that pesky virus.

Thanks for the input. A national naming convention would be helpful, wouldn't it? :)