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It seems that after a bunch of relatively harmless computer malware, we started to forget that once someone or something is on your Windows computer, they can do pretty much anything, including deleting all your files.

MyDoom.F was apparently a wake-up call to some.

Searches the folders on drives C to Z for files with certain extensions.
If the drive is a hard drive, remote drive, or RAM drive, the worm randomly deletes the files it finds with the following probability:

.mdb - 98% [apparently it has a particular hate on for MS Access database files]
.doc - 40%
.xls - 60%
.sav - 95%
.jpg - 8%
.avi - 10%
.bmp - 15%

In today's Ottawa Citizen, Glen McGregor makes it real by telling the tale of his Doomsday.

virtually every digital photo I had ever taken had been purged from the drive: The bleary-eyed snaps from last Christmas morning, all erased. Pictures of an anniversary trip to New York City, disappeared. Pictures of my youngest daughter, taken in China moments after her adoption, all irretrievably wiped. Yes... I should have backed up my data more carefully.

I think he may be able to undelete some of the files unless the virus was particularly sophisticated. But nevertheless it is a reminder:
- back up all your important data files to CD or DVD
- get an external hard drive and backup to there too
- run anti-virus software with the latest updates
- be careful with your email and with ANY files that you run

Not that I'm a Cassandra or anything, but you can read my previous postings about MyDoom and its variants:
It all started on January 26, 2004
In case you're wondering, the final count of MyDoom virus emails I got is about 33.
This makes it by far the biggest and fastest single outbreak I recall.
January 27, 2004
January 28, 2004
January 29, 2004 (MyDoom.B)
February 2, 2004
February 3, 2004
February 10, 2004 (summary, plus delicious DoomJuice)
And our star prize... February 24, 2004 (MyDoom.F)
February 26, 2004 posted by Richard at 17:40 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)