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Warning about virus senders | How depressing

Sonya Mountford-Jones — Thu, 18 Nov 2004 19:52:00 +0000

Forum: Safe computing
Topic: Warning about virus senders
Poster: Sonya Mountford-Jones
Post title: How depressing

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
[url removed]

Warning about virus senders | Annoying

Mathew Robinson — Fri, 12 Nov 2004 16:25:00 +0000

Forum: Safe computing
Topic: Warning about virus senders
Poster: Mathew Robinson
Post title: Annoying

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.

Warning about virus senders | Nothing against you

Hynek Palatin — Fri, 12 Nov 2004 09:31:00 +0000

Forum: Safe computing
Topic: Warning about virus senders
Poster: Hynek Palatin
Post title: Nothing against you

[quote]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??[/quote]

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.

Warning about virus senders | I'm not trying to expose the actual people

Sonya Mountford-Jones — Fri, 12 Nov 2004 07:57:00 +0000

Forum: Safe computing
Topic: Warning about virus senders
Poster: Sonya Mountford-Jones
Post title: I'm not trying to expose the actual people

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

Warning about virus senders | It's very unlikely that these people are at fault

Ralf Lemster — Thu, 11 Nov 2004 23:02:00 +0000

Forum: Safe computing
Topic: Warning about virus senders
Poster: Ralf Lemster
Post title: It's very unlikely that these people are at fault

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 [url= [url removed] ]Symantec Knowledge Base[/url], and search for document [phone removed] 54.

Hope this clarifies it.

Best regards, Ralf

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

[Edited at 2004-11-11 23:09]

Warning about virus senders

Sonya Mountford-Jones — Thu, 11 Nov 2004 19:45:00 +0000

Forum: Safe computing
Topic: Warning about virus senders
Poster: Sonya Mountford-Jones

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