Companies are being warned to beware of a new email virus.

Trevor Lambert, of Bulldog Engineering Recruitment, Grand Parade, Brighton, said his company had received several emails, disguised as Microsoft software updates, with contaminated attachments.

Known as the Swen virus, emails have subject headings such as, "Microsoft technical bulletin" or "Microsoft security support", which tempt users to open the attachments.

It also arrives as a returned email.

Swen is thought to have infected more than a million computers around the world.

It spreads via shared network files, leaving copies of itself in the start-up folders found on individual Windows computers connected to the network.

Monday September 29, 2003