I'll think twice about using my personal computer this morning. Today is "V" Day, the 26th of the month, the day when the dreaded "32 bit CIH" virus strikes.
I don't know if my PC has been infected by this virus, which has been plaguing China one day a month since August, but I'm taking no chances. I got another kind of virus in January which crashed my PC and destroyed everything on the hard drive, including files and telephone numbers.
The CIH virus, named loosely after its inventor, Chen Yinghao, a university student in Taiwan, first appeared in August, according to Mr Tain Yakui, assistant manager of Rising Computer and Technology Inc in Beijing. It is transmitted by downloading material from other computers or through a CD-rom or floppy disc, and activates itself on the 26th of each month.
CIH is a "masterpiece" among computer viruses, Mr Tain told me, and has caused havoc by writing rubbish codes onto the hard drives of computers belonging to individual Internet users, enterprises, colleges, the Customs Department and even the State Council, China's governing body.
A "net-worm" in Guangzhou known as "Apen" unwittingly transmitted the virus to dozens of his friends to whom he was supplying software, and they were so furious that they "bombed" his e-mail box with thousands of junk files in revenge. Mr Tain's organisation, which provides software to kill CIH, is one of several anti-virus companies set up in China as an onslaught threatens computer users throughout Asia.
The wired population in China has jumped from 620,000 last year to 1.18 million today, and is expected to reach five million by the year 2000. But there is low awareness of the danger and a huge market in illegal wares - I just have to walk down the street in Beijing to get half a dozen whispered offers of pirated CD-roms.
The Chinese authorities are also worried about young Chinese hackers trying to imitate the feats of western cyberspace kids, such as the 14-year-old boy on a home computer who disabled an airport control tower in Massachusetts last year.
One of the first to emerge is 20-year-old Xiao Sui, who made his presence known on July 21st when staff at the Xintain company were completing the integration of a multimedia net in Jiangxi province. The image suddenly twisted. "Illegal intrusion," someone shouted and technicians immediately began trying to locate the intruder who had decoded the password.
The system shut down, but not before the programmers detected five digits of a six-digit telephone number. Public security officials in Jiangsu Province, where telephones have only six digits, were able to identify half-a-dozen suspects with similar numbers who had been surfing that day. They excluded all but Xiao, a computer graduate whose telephone bills showed he was attacking networks all over China. When police raided his house he said he did it for fun.
This event was a jolt for the Chinese authorities, especially the military, where concern is high about the vulnerability of their weapons computer systems.
Two divisions of the People's Liberation Army in Shenyang military region have already held the PLA's first exercise in computer virus warfare, according to the Taiwan Central News Agency.
China's Ministry of Public Security - Beijing's FBI - is now teaming up with US software giant Computer Associates International to develop software to combat computer viruses and hackers.
Police are particularly concerned about growing computer fraud. This month they caught the country's first cyber-bank robbers. Two brothers, one a bank official, allegedly hacked into a bank network system and stole 260,000 yuan (£20,000).
They broke into a rural branch of the bank - also in Jiangsu Province - and inserted false accounts and a remote control into the computer terminal. They then electronically wired 720,000 yuan into false bank accounts using the remote control. They were arrested on October 13th after police traced a pager account that was closed on the night of the robbery.
Even the cyber criminals may take a break from their work today when the CIH virus strikes, with possibly more serious consequences than last time. "September 26th fell on a Saturday when there were less network users, but this time the 26th is a Monday so there will be more infected users," predicted Mr Tain.
The misguided genius behind CIH, having been traced to his terminal in Taipei, has apologised in an open letter on the Internet, saying he created the virus only as an experiment, and he accused anti-virus companies of hyping up the problem to create business. Chen Yinghao admitted ruefully, however, that "many people probably want to chop me up now".
After today, hundreds of furious computer users throughout China might indeed be harbouring dark thoughts about hacking the hacker.