OT: another virus warning

Hi ladies

Just to raise a worry for those of us who put 'nomail' in our email addies.

One of my DH's email addresses today got 254 virus messages. He uses Linux, so they can't get into his system, but one thing concerns him: this email address isn't printed anywhere, and has never been used for anything except, a few times, for picking up posts on newsgroups. When doing that, it's had the word 'nomail' inserted.

Do you think they're now auto-trawling us and picking up addresses with 'nomail' or 'nospam' in them? If so, it might be time to think of changing addies again.

:( Trish

Reply to
Trishty
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I just deleted more than 100 "Microsoft" messages (collected overnight). On another NG a post mentions that these come from friends and correspondents, rather than UseNet. (Someone with yours in their address book downloads a virus, and it happily sends itself to everyone in their book, including you. Odds are good that one of those recipients has you in *their* book. Wash, rinse, repeat.) HTH

--Karen M.

Reply to
Karen M.

Reply to
Anita Keeton

Anita Keeton scrawled in bright red lipstick:

  1. just ask your ISP for a new account and a new email address. Then, you will only get virus emails from those people you give your new address to that have infected computers. Assuming you do a "send all" to tell all your pals that you have a new email address, you will be guaranteed to get more more virii sooner or later.
  2. you do not get viruses from newsgroups!!!! They come from copies of your email address that are on other's computers that get infected. Don't use your real email address when registering at websites for starters.
  3. for protection against bots harvesting your address for spam purposes, use a munged email address in your "from" settings. Usenet is all about sharing, who needs to email you privately anyway.
  4. my domain ISP for my business filters virii for me, I never get them on my domain account.
  5. you can make rules in your email program to "delete from server" I made a bunch of rules using Microsoft, security, critical and a few other keywords and the incidence of these things coming into my inbox has dropped dramatically.

Penny

ps geeks feel free to make corrections.

Reply to
Penny S

I will go ask my DH if there is an address or where he heard of it but just tonight he said there is a patch he needs to install on our computer to stop these bogus Microsoft and "undeliverable message" virus e-mails.

Linda, Richmond,VA (still reeling after Isabel & tornado)

Reply to
Arlinda

Some of the addresses look so completely faked that I think that the original files were sent out spoofed to get to the maximum amount of victims. (*@ispserver.*) is the usual format. The file then replicates within the address book of whoever opens the file in their mail. There's the catch right there-you have to open the file for it to infect your system.

Hate to tell you, but this is a virus that takes advantage of an older "hole" in Windows. The patch is buried deep in the bowel of Micro$oft and may or may not work. You're better off making sure that your anti-virus software DAT files are the latest and greatest, run a full system scan and shift-delete any messages with the attachments (the "shift" bypasses the trash folder and sends the file straight to oblivion).

Funny thing is, I have received stinkloads of the stupid thing, all through Hotmail, which is supposed to have automatic virus filtering and none through my regular mail reader (Eudora).

Reply to
Poohma

Thanks Beth.

He found what the problem was this particular time: he'd filled in the 'reply to' box with his normal email address...silly twit. He also just finished downloading the latest Windoze security patches yesterday for the two M$ machines- we're a couple of weeks behind, with him having been in hospital.

These damn spoof thingies going about are driving me nuts. Updated McAfee again this morning...

It's enough to send me screaming back to my Mac, the true object of my affection.

:) Trish

Reply to
Trishty

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