An e-mail worm capable of destroying saved documents is scheduled to hit Penn State computers on Friday, an Information Technology Services (ITS) spokeswoman said.

The worm, called Blackmal.E, is programmed to wreck havoc on computer systems on the third day of each month. It was originally released on Jan. 17.

"This worm is really scary because if it gets implanted on a computer, it will find Word documents, Excel spreadsheets and other files and replace their contents with gibberish," Robin Anderson, ITS spokeswoman, said in an e-mail message. "This will make the files completely useless."

Blackmal.E spreads via e-mail attachments, but can also enter computers through weakly protected network shares, said Kathy Kimball, director of ITS Security Operations and Services.

"Just remember to never click on attachments that you're not expecting," Kimball said. "Be very, very careful with any attachments."

Most variants of the Blackmal.E worm are being caught by standard virus protection software. If students do not have the latest version of the software, however, the bug may not be caught.

"Students need to be very up-to-date on security," Kimball said. "They should make sure that both their protection software and their personal firewalls are up-to-date."

Anderson said the most recent anti-virus software can be downloaded for free at http://downloads.its.psu.edu.

"Students should make sure that they set their protection software to do automatic updates," Anderson said. "They should also visit our Take Control site, which outlines all of the steps that need to be taken to make your computer as secure as possible."

Take Control can be accessed at http://its.psu.edu/takecontrol.

Kimball advised students to back-up their files in case their computers are infected with Blackmal.E.

"That way, if the worst happens and some of your documents are lost, you will at least have a recovery method," she said.

The Blackmal.E worm has affected only a handful of computers at Penn State so far, Anderson said.

But Kimball said the Penn State community needs to be aware of the worm's serious consequences.

"The reason we really want to get the word out there about this virus is because of its destructive nature," she said. "Its potential damage is pretty ugly -- it will be a very rude experience for students."

On Friday, several additional viruses were released, some of which spread through AOL Instant Messenger, Kimball said. Anti-virus software will not detect these viruses.

"If you get an instant message that says 'look at this photo', be really careful," Kimball said. "If you click on it, it will infiltrate a program that will be very hostile to your computer."