Question about email viruses....

[Mark H]

Hey guys,
I removed my email address from my profile but it is too late. I get an email virus EVERY DAY from russia. I block the address but they never use the same address twice. It is amazing. EVERY day. Anyone else get these? They are usually NON attached documents in the normal sense, ie.. no photo or anything like that. It's usually about 135K to 168K in size. I forward it back to the sender with a new subject line saying "FU*****CK you" and then block the address. Every day a new one, anyone else getting this?

Mark H.

[Patrick]

... in response to Question about email viruses...., posted by Mark H on May 22, 2002

I get several viruses per day myself in my agency email.  I get them because many people in Latin America have my email address in their address books and this is how viruses spread themselves.  They send a copy of themselves out to everyone in the infected person's address book.  The Kletz virus is running rampant right now.  Anyone who frequents internet tech sites right now is aware of this.  People in developing countries often don't use any kind of virus protection, so their systems are widely infected at the moment.

I think it's a bit paranoid to assume that you're getting them from people "out to get you".  It's probably just the virus out to get you, just like they're designed to do to any address they find in a person's address book.  If anyone in Russia, Ukraine, Colombia, etc. happens to have your address in their address book, you're going to get them.

Run virus protection programs and update the virus definitions file regularly.  Don't open attachments unless you know what they are.  If it ends in ".jpg", ".gif" it's an image file, but some viruses are clever and send out something like ".jpg.exe" which is an executable file made to fool people into believing it's an image.

I've been on the internet for seven years and have never been infected.  I could even run virus protection free if I use common sense and make sure of what any attachment I'm opening is.

[juio99]

... in response to I think you guys are jumping to conclusi..., posted by Patrick on May 22, 2002

Patrick, with some viruses you do not have to open an attachment to get the virus.  So you have been lucky indeed.

JR

[Patrick]

... in response to Re: I think you guys are jumping to conc..., posted by juio99 on May 22, 2002

I stay away from Microsoft products for the most part.  I do run Windows 2000, but I've never used Outlook for e-mail and I keep up on service packs and virus definition files as well.

Virus writers target the most popular applications in order to have the greatest impact.  The most popular e-mail client on the internet is Microsoft Outlook.  If you run that, you are vulnerable.  I've heard that Eudora uses the same address book scheme as Outlook, so it may be also a target.  But the e-mail client I use (The Bat from Rit Labs) is obscure enough to be ignored by virus writers.  It's also the most powerful e-mail client I've seen for internet business owners (which is why I started using it in the first place).

[Jack]

... in response to I think you guys are jumping to conclusi..., posted by Patrick on May 22, 2002

Patrick,

 When the e-mails say, "Important information for manager" and there is no information, only the virus or "Hello, I have an important question" and there is no question, only the virus. And my favorite, "You scum bag" and you get on average five of these a day and all from Russia, Patrick, it ain't no accident. Look at todays and yesterday's ISP's Patrick, two and three visus coming from the same ISP and all with different subject titles and all with virus's! Ain't no accident Patrick.

 These Russian competitors are a bit different that those from Latin America I think. I am not sure you have the amount of scamming or the intensity of scamming that these Russian scam artist have. Remember it is tough over there finacially and this scamming is the livelyhood of many scam agenies.  Knocking my computer down for a week, losing all my data, would be a blessing to some scum scammers.

[Patrick]

... in response to Re: I think you guys are jumping to conc..., posted by Jack on May 22, 2002

Many viruses either use a subject line they find in recent emails on the infected system, or choose them randomly from many canned ones the virus author comes up with.  The ones I get say all kinds of things, even advice on HTML coding.

If you get one that says "Hey Jack, can you take a look at the attached file?" then I'll believe it's intentional.  "Important information for manager" is generic enough that it could easily have been copied from another email or simply one of the canned subject lines.

I too have been getting many more viruses sent to me recently at my agency email address.  It's not because people are out to get me, it's because there's a he!! of a lot of infected systems right now.

[Jack]

... in response to Question about email viruses...., posted by Mark H on May 22, 2002

Six virus's today, only four yesterday.

Compare ISP's,....

172.141.103.204
194.67.57.11
195.215.238.213
210.86.15.129
210.86.15.131
210.86.15.138
212.46.0.3
219.88.24.8
219.88.24.87
219.88.26.236

And Mark, remember the nasty e-mail you received last week?  You want to know who is was?

After many of the guys shared what there e-mails with me I know without any doubt who it was?...A couple of guys guessed right, it was none other than Chicken boy, the boy who uses 50+ names, Drew baby!

But a little twist to the story. Chicken Boy Drew baby has been corresponding with Clairewitch.

A couple of guys on the P-L board have also written Claire and communicated with Claire in the past. One of these guys was very protective of his e-mail, Drew baby could not have gotten this guy's e-mail, but Claireb1tch had this guys e-mail and gave to Drew baby. Another guy had shared some not public information with Tootsie. Tootsie also communicated with Clairewitch. Claireb1tch shared this info with Chicken boy Drew and this information was mentioned in one of the guys nasty e-mails from Chicken boy.

[Dan]

... in response to Question about email viruses...., posted by Mark H on May 22, 2002

Appeared here and started his crap. Just coincidence??? Maybe - but I think not.

- Dan