The Sims Online has a virus on it. The virus, which automatically spread from Maxis to everybody who has played the game between 29 and 31 March. The virus wasn't detected by virusscanners, as one of the players of The Sims Online created it, and the virus was unknown so far. The virus is called W32.TSO.Worm. Maxis has apologized for this occuring:

"We are deeply sorry that this could occur. We detected the problem when the servers were sending a lot of data to our players, but we couldn't trace it back. It turned out to be this new virus. We have cleaned the servers, and so the virus won't be spread anymore. Users are now protected from getting it, but should still be aware if they have it. We'll release a clean-up patch to remove the virus from the player's computer as soon as possible."

Players will automatically be warned if they are infected when they play The Sims Online again.

The virus will block you from playing The Sims Online again, and it'll also automatically uninstall the game. However, your account won't be removed, so you keep paying for your account. This virus will trigger 14 April. Maxis is doing everything they can to prevent any damage.

The account of the creator of the virus has been traced back and is permanently blocked. For the next few weeks, Maxis will continuously monitor their servers for malicious traffic and content. An email will be sent to everybody who has played The Sims Online the past 3 days explaining the danger. The patch is expected to be finished later today or tomorrow, and is created by the programmers of Maxis together with Symantec, known of Norton Antivirus. We will keep you updated, and inform you as soon as the patch is available. For more precise details of what the virus does, click "read more". We advise everybody, including those who don't have TSO (it might also affect any other version of The Sims), to do this.