Warning about virus senders
Thread poster: Sonya Mountford-Jones
Sonya Mountford-Jones
Sonya Mountford-Jones  Identity Verified
Local time: 13:23
French to English
+ ...
Nov 11, 2004

Hi everyone,

I've recently been sent several e-mails containing viruses in the attachments and just wanted to warn anyone who may not have great anti-virus software installed not to open them. I've had some from someone under the name of 'Dolberg' and others from a 'Chapman', the subject line is always "hello" or "Thanks" and there is a) in the body of the e-mail.
Luckily my computer tells me there's a virus in
... See more
Hi everyone,

I've recently been sent several e-mails containing viruses in the attachments and just wanted to warn anyone who may not have great anti-virus software installed not to open them. I've had some from someone under the name of 'Dolberg' and others from a 'Chapman', the subject line is always "hello" or "Thanks" and there is a) in the body of the e-mail.
Luckily my computer tells me there's a virus in the attachment and removes it anyway but that's not the point. They send these e-mails almost daily, sometimes several in one day.

Anyway, I've looked into how to report them and reported the 'Dolberg' one when I received another mail from him/her today and will report 'Chapman' as soon as I get another one from them.

In short, please take care not to open these attachments, this sort of thing really annoys me, who do they think they are and what have they got against me??

Take care everyone,

Sonya
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Ralf Lemster
Ralf Lemster  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 14:23
English to German
+ ...
It's very unlikely that these people are at fault Nov 11, 2004

Sonya,
I can understand your frustration - however, I would strongly recommend not to try and 'expose' any individual shown as the sender of an infected message.

Almost all recent e-mail worms have address-faking capabilities - IOW it's very unlikely that the 'sender' shown has anything to do with this. All you could say is that your address as well as the 'sender's' address may have been stored on an infected system. Have a l
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Sonya,
I can understand your frustration - however, I would strongly recommend not to try and 'expose' any individual shown as the sender of an infected message.

Almost all recent e-mail worms have address-faking capabilities - IOW it's very unlikely that the 'sender' shown has anything to do with this. All you could say is that your address as well as the 'sender's' address may have been stored on an infected system. Have a look at the Symantec Knowledge Base, and search for document 2004052710202154.

Hope this clarifies it.

Best regards, Ralf

[Edited at 2004-11-11 23:04]

[Edited at 2004-11-11 23:09]
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Sonya Mountford-Jones
Sonya Mountford-Jones  Identity Verified
Local time: 13:23
French to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
I'm not trying to expose the actual people Nov 12, 2004

Hi Ralf,

I appreciate your advice but I'm not trying to expose the actual people, the information I gave was very vague I didn't give out their e-mail address, and to report the sender of the virus I followed the correct procedures - copying and pasting the headings from the e-mail, etc. I just wanted to warn other possible receivers of the mail.

I'll now have a look at the link you provided thanks for that.

Kind regards,

Sonya


 
Hynek Palatin
Hynek Palatin  Identity Verified
Czech Republic
Local time: 14:23
Member (2003)
English to Czech
+ ...
Nothing against you Nov 12, 2004

In short, please take care not to open these attachments, this sort of thing really annoys me, who do they think they are and what have they got against me??


It's nothing personal. Today's viruses usually work like this:

Computer A gets infected. The virus picks up two random names from e-mail address book on this computers, let's say B and C. Then it sends itself to B and puts C as the sender. Usually it's really hard to trace A, the real source of infection. IMO it won't help to report anything (to whom?). If the senders are still the same, create a filter in your e-mail program to delete these messages immediately.


 
Mathew Robinson
Mathew Robinson
United Kingdom
Local time: 13:23
English
Annoying Nov 12, 2004

The address spoofing viruses are becomming the rule rather than the exception.

Gone are the days when you could phone up a colleague and politely ask them to scan their system because their email contained a maco virus.

This method of self-propogation ensures the virus a prolonged lifespan due to not being able to track doen the source, so expect these emails to be around for a long time.

We have three seperate levels of incomming email scanning in place, a
... See more
The address spoofing viruses are becomming the rule rather than the exception.

Gone are the days when you could phone up a colleague and politely ask them to scan their system because their email contained a maco virus.

This method of self-propogation ensures the virus a prolonged lifespan due to not being able to track doen the source, so expect these emails to be around for a long time.

We have three seperate levels of incomming email scanning in place, and four for outbound including the ISP's scanning of SMTP but are still forced to set up filters in outlook to remove the daily hundreds (yes hundreds) of empty emails that contained viruses.
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Sonya Mountford-Jones
Sonya Mountford-Jones  Identity Verified
Local time: 13:23
French to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
How depressing Nov 18, 2004

Thanks for your comments Hynek and TechTrans, I don't feel quite so bad now. I've set up a filter system on Outlook to delete the messages as soon as they arrive now. Do you guys know how long these things last though - I mean am I likely to receive these messages indefinitely?

Thanks,

Sonya Mountford
www.interlingual-translation-services.com


 


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