The anti-virus protection offered by Microsoft's Hotmail service hasn't been updated to protect users against the prolific SirCam worm. Register readers have written in to inform us that the McAfee virus scanning engine used by Hotmail does not stop users either sending or receiving the bug which has become a major nuisance for Internet users this week. The McAfee virus scanner used by the revamped Hotmail blocks earlier bugs, such as the Anna Kournikova worm, but not SirCam. Informed sources tell us Hotmail's protection is updated on Thursday night, so hopefully things will be put right soon. Hotmail is one of the few Web-based email services to have any virus protection. MessageLabs has intercepted 25,622 copies of the virus so far, 3,557 of which were caught today, and it predicts that today marks the peak of the outbreak, after which the virus will slowly fade away.
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