To Rocky & Mike--Some Virus Info
Rocky, hope you didn't leave yet & hope you stay.
All the latest viruses/virii(?) & worms over the last few years are all
address book based--they pull addresses from the infected computer's address
book and not only do they send to those addresses, they pretend to be one or
more of the addresses. For example, Rocky, if you get a virus sent to you
supposedly by a list member, and now you are unsubscribing, this WILL NOT
STOP YOU FROM GETTING A FUTURE VIRUS. Your e-mail address is already in
someone's address book, so unsubscribing from the list won't do a thing.
There's really no way of knowing where it's coming from besides checking the
message's IP address--the only thing you know is that it came from somebody
you corresponded with. So, if you say there were 20-30 persons you e-mailed
off-list, then it could be any of them. You may even get an infected e-mail
from somebody you don't even know... because the virus randomly chooses who
it will "pretend to be" it could be someone or someplace in Bob or Ray or
Joe or JimmyBob's or whoever's address book that you personally never
e-mailed. So since many post replies to the group via e-mail, you may get an
infected message that appears it's from the list, while actually it may be
from anybody that has the list's e-mail address.
The importance of an anti-virus program can't be overstated, however more
important is keeping the program up-to-date & having the latest virus
definitions. My own AV program must literally be downloading updates every
day or so, I see its activity all the time. Compare this to a program that
does weekly or monthly updates. All the netsky, mywife, klez etc rely on you
opening an attachment to get infected. NEVER open attachments besides jpegs,
especially ones that have multiple dots like "pictures.zip.pif" or "your
document.xls.exe" etc, they are tip-offs they are infected attachments.
Never open anything with .exe, .pif, .scr, etc. Even html attachments can
have embedded scripts which run when the attachment's opened.
For those with anti-virus programs, be sure it is set to scan outgoing
messages also. For those "in denial" that no way can they be the one
spreading the virus, here's an easy thing you can do. Go to your address
book and make a bogus entry like MyDogSpot@dogs.com or something only you
will remember--DO NOT USE SOMETHING SOMEONE ELSE WILL USE OR EVER BE ABLE TO
GUESS. Since it is a bogus e-mail address, if you try sending to it you will
get an error message like "Delivery Notification: Delivery has failed" or
'Returned mail: User unknown" or something similar. Now, since a virus sends
messages to address book entries, if you ever get the error message, then
YOUR computer just tried sending the virus to the bogus address; you now
know it's you because nobody else has that bogus e-mail in their address
book. And if you are getting the same User Unknown error message but you
know you didn't send anything, chances are it's coming from your computer.
If others are getting the User Unknown error message, please mention it
here; why? Because if you get that message returned to YOU, you aren't
infected but the other person's computer who's infected tried sending a
message pretending to be YOU. If you say, "I just got a returned user
unknown message addressed to MyDogSpot@dogs.com & I know I didn't send
anything," whoever used MyDogSpot@dogs.com as there bogus address NOW knows
their computer is infected.
Hope this helps.
Mark in BUF
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