Sim
Administrator
From: Sim' Hampel
I have just received several emails from people on the forum which contained email viruses.
Apparently several other people have too.
I haven't investigated further, but I would imagine (guess only) that this is the result of people using Microsoft Outlook becoming infected with an email virus which then causes an email to be sent to everyone in their address books.
PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE do yourself and everyone else a favour... get yourself a good antivirus program which automatically scans your emails as you download them
I use and highly recommend Symantec's Norton Antivirus product. The 2000, 2001 and new 2002 versions all support email scanning. This product is available at most computer stores (including Harvey Norman and Harris Technology). Norton AntiVirus 2002 V8 for Win98/ME/NT/2000/XP is the current version and costs between $85 and $100. More information can be found at http://www.symantec.com
I am not affiliated with Symantec in any way.
Get it. Install it. Make sure you configure the email protection.
For the curious among you, the emails I (and others) received have attachments named:
New_Napster_Site.MP3.pif
Me_nude.MP3.scr
Sorry_about_yesterday.MP3.pif
THESE ARE NOT MP3 FILES the extension that Windows uses is the part after the final dot... so ".pif" and ".scr". These are executable scripts on Windows platforms, so when you double click on them to supposedly open the attachment, you are actually executing the virus program (a trojan horse) causing your computer to become infected.
The attachments contained the W32.Badtrans.B@mm worm which although does not do much damage to your local machine, does have a keystroke logger in it which can potentially detect things like your passwords and credit card details.
With this type of information, someone could access your online banking information (assuming it had a log of your session) and transfer money from your account to someone elses
More information about this worm can be found at:
http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/[email protected]
In my opinion, anyone who uses email programs without suitable email virus scanning is being incredibly foolish and irresponsible. This is especially true for Microsoft Outlook, which is extremely vulnerable to email viruses, worms and trojans.
If anyone wants to discuss these issues further or needs some technical help, please feel free to email me.
I have just received several emails from people on the forum which contained email viruses.
Apparently several other people have too.
I haven't investigated further, but I would imagine (guess only) that this is the result of people using Microsoft Outlook becoming infected with an email virus which then causes an email to be sent to everyone in their address books.
PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE do yourself and everyone else a favour... get yourself a good antivirus program which automatically scans your emails as you download them
I use and highly recommend Symantec's Norton Antivirus product. The 2000, 2001 and new 2002 versions all support email scanning. This product is available at most computer stores (including Harvey Norman and Harris Technology). Norton AntiVirus 2002 V8 for Win98/ME/NT/2000/XP is the current version and costs between $85 and $100. More information can be found at http://www.symantec.com
I am not affiliated with Symantec in any way.
Get it. Install it. Make sure you configure the email protection.
For the curious among you, the emails I (and others) received have attachments named:
New_Napster_Site.MP3.pif
Me_nude.MP3.scr
Sorry_about_yesterday.MP3.pif
THESE ARE NOT MP3 FILES the extension that Windows uses is the part after the final dot... so ".pif" and ".scr". These are executable scripts on Windows platforms, so when you double click on them to supposedly open the attachment, you are actually executing the virus program (a trojan horse) causing your computer to become infected.
The attachments contained the W32.Badtrans.B@mm worm which although does not do much damage to your local machine, does have a keystroke logger in it which can potentially detect things like your passwords and credit card details.
With this type of information, someone could access your online banking information (assuming it had a log of your session) and transfer money from your account to someone elses
More information about this worm can be found at:
http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/[email protected]
In my opinion, anyone who uses email programs without suitable email virus scanning is being incredibly foolish and irresponsible. This is especially true for Microsoft Outlook, which is extremely vulnerable to email viruses, worms and trojans.
If anyone wants to discuss these issues further or needs some technical help, please feel free to email me.
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