May 19, 2013
News 12 at 11 o'clock / Saturday, Oct. 22, 2011
SAVANNAH RIVER, Ga. -- It was last Saturday night when thousands of fish started washing up in Brier Creek near the Richmond/Burke County line. The Environmental Protection Division did not issue any advisories for swimming nor for eating the fish.
One week later, there's still no answer as to what killed fish in the tributary of the Savannah River. News 12 took a trip down the Savannah and caught up with the Riverkeeper, Tonya Bonitatibus. The Georgia Environmental Protection Division has given her some new information.
"We've heard that it was a drop in the pH that killed the fish. The cause of that drop in pH -- we still believe is Aluminum Sulfate," she said.
She says that Aluminum Sulfate, or Alum, came from one of the local kaolin mines, but EPD continues investigating, and she's growing frustrated with their response.
"There was no fish advisory warning, there was no stay-out-of-the-creek warning, there was no don't-drink-out-of-this-creek warning," said the Riverkeeper.
She says the City of Waynesboro was left in the dark by EPD, too.
"The City of Waynesboro did not know, and they were not told even two days after the fish kill started. Their drinking water comes directly from that creek, downstream from the kill," Bonitatibus said.
And now, she's ready to take action.
"I would like to see a precautionary on these fish kills, not a let's wait, test, wait a week, and then let people know if there's something wrong," she said.
Just yesterday, the Ogeechee Riverkeeper filed a lawsuit against EPD. She's upset that after the largest fish kill in Georgia's state history last May, a textile company she and many others believe is responsible is only paying back $1 million. Now, with a fish kill even closer to home, Bonitatibus says she may have to file a similar suit.
"Yes, it's nice that we're there, but at the same time, you've got to realize you're relying on a nonprofit organization to alert your folks, and this is the government's job," Bonitatibus said.
If anything, she hopes EPD will learn some lessons from both kills.
News 12 tried to contact the EPD but did not hear back from them. On Tuesday, Kevin Chambers with EPD said they're investigating. Bonitatibus just wishes they'd let people know what is going on as a precautionary measure.
She's even scheduled a public meeting in Keysville about the most recent fish kill. They'll also be talking about how EPD's response could have been better. That meeting will take place 3 p.m. Oct. 30 at the Keysville Townhall.
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Kaspersky Lab warns users about the emergence online of a new version of the Gpcode ransomware program.
The program spreads via malicious websites and P2P networks.
Kaspersky Lab products detect the program as Trojan-Ransom.Win32.Gpcode.ax.
You can read more on our blog.
Kaspersky Lab is monitoring a new email worm which is currently spreading. Emails spreading the worm say “Here you have” in the subject line.
We detect the worm as Email-Worm.Win32.VBMania.
While the servers hosting related downloads have been taken down, we are keeping customers updated and protected against any new variants.
Net-Worm.Win32.Kido exploits a critical vulnerability (MS08-067) in Microsoft Windows to spread via local networks and removable storage media.
The worm disables system restore, blocks access to security websites, and downloads additional malware to infected machines.
Users are strongly recommended to ensure their antivirus databases are up to date. A patch for the vulnerability is available from Microsoft.
Detailed descriptions of Net-Worm.Win32.Kido.bt, Net-Worm.Win32.Kido.dv and Net-Worm.Win32.Kido.fx are available in the Virus Encyclopaedia. A dedicated removal tool is available here.
The new Gpcode variant encrypts files with extensions DOC, TXT, PDF, XLS, JPG, PNG, CPP, H etc. on hard drives using an RSA algorithm with a 1024-bit key.
After encrypting files, the virus leaves a text file in the folder next to the encrypted files with following message:
Currently, we detect the new variant, but we are unable to crack the 1024-bit key. Our analysts are continuing to work on both the key and the virus to resolve this issue.
Kaspersky Lab recommends that all Internet users enable maximum protection from malicious code and network attacks on their computers, refrain from executing suspicious programs received from untrustworthy sources and back up any important information on their computers.
Detection of Virus.Win32.Gpcode.ak was added to Kaspersky Anti-Virus signature databases yesterday, on June 4th, at 15:39 GMT. Please make sure to update if you haven’t already.
If you have fallen victim to Gpcode.ak, try to contact us using another computer connected to the Internet. DO NOT RESTART or POWER DOWN the potentially infected machine. Contact us by email stopgpcode@kaspersky.com and tell us the exact date and time of infection, as well everything you did on the computer in the 5 minutes before the machine was infected: which programs you have executed, which websites you have visited, etc. We'll try and help you recover any data that has been encrypted.
For more information about the malicious program, please read our weblog.
A few hours before this point, there was a noticeable increase in mail traffic of an earlier modification of Warezov - Warezov.do which featured in the October 2006 Top 20.
If you are using Kaspersky Anti-Virus 6.0 or Kaspersky Internet Security 6.0 with Proactive Protection turned on, new variants will be detected without the need to update your antivirus databases.
A full description of Email-Worm.Win32.Warezov.nf is now available in the Virus Encyclopaedia.
