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A new variant of last year's "Pretty Park" virus is making the rounds, according to antivirus firm Network Associates.

The Trojan horse, which arrives as an e-mail attachment named "prettypark.exe," does not delete or alter files, but it sends a copy of itself to everyone in the victim’s e-mail address book every 30 minutes, which can bog down an entire network.

It is spreading quickly, according to Network Associates, and has infected computers on a dozen corporate and government networks.

Pretty Park first appeared last year. This new outbreak -- officially labeled "W32/Pretty.worm.unp" -- is simply that virus delivered in uncompressed form, according to Kelly Shall, spokeswoman for Network Associates.

It was discovered in mid-February but wasn't considered a serious risk at that time, Shall said. In recent days, though, infection rates have been surprisingly high.

"It's spreading pretty fast," she said.

The virus can infect users of any of the Windows platforms.

Virulent e-mail messages arrive with the subject line "C:CoolProgsPretty Park.exe." Attached is a program with an icon of Kyle, one of the "South Park" TV series characters. Because the file appears to come from a colleague or friend, victims are being tricked into opening the file.

Victims simply see an image of Kyle, but in the background the program begins spamming everyone in their address book with the attachment.

Harder to detect Antivirus programs will detect the virus. Internet users are still cautioned to use care when opening e-mail attachments.