I don't know what's going on boys but...

[simpo two]

For some weeks I've been getting the odd e-mail purportedly from TVRCC addresses.

Today it's getting beyond a joke. I've dumped two without comment already. And now three more have arrived, so I'm going public:

[e-mail]
[e-mail]
[e-mail]

To name but three. All are viruses. They may be spoofs, but something is going on. You'll forgive me for being a bit pissed off.

[tvrwhoa]

Hi Simpo, I too have been getting the odd email, it is a virus which is using an email address list, I and sending spoof emails. Best advice is to just delete them and don't open any attachments, not much else you can do really, you could always set your email browser not to accept emails from those addresses if it really gets your goat.

[Tripps]

Quite right its a clever trojan horse that hijacks valid senders and recipients in order to get the virus through to you, although it never normally sends from the addresses the e-mail claims to come from.

If you check the e-mail headers then (if you know what it means) you'll see that it never came from the domain of the supposed recipient.

[rude girl]

If it's a virus, then it's being sent by a computer that has both you and those addresses in the address book.

Just don't open them.

[stin hambo]

Yeah it's a common virus thing.

It looks like they are coming from that person. Best thing to do is email it back and tell them they have a virus and bloody well sort it!

[_DJ_]

stin hambo said:

Yeah it's a common virus thing. It looks like they are coming from that person. Best thing to do is email it back and tell them they have a virus and bloody well sort it!

email it back to whom? As has been mentioned, the mail that was sent was not from the indicated sender.

[PetrolTed]

It's just a fact of modern internet life. Best approach is to just accept that you will receive them. Then there's no stress.

[yellow peril]

stin hambo said:

Best thing to do is email it back and tell them they have a virus and bloody well sort it!

No....he got one from me the other day and I certainly didn't send it, he certainly is not in my address book and I certainly do not have a virus.

As an RO with a large database I ensure I have the best Norton package, Norton internet security and a firewall....I virus check the computer every week and do a full system online scan from symantec every month.......

A good virus checker will chuck them out......


...//P//

[catretriever]

stin hambo said:

email it back and tell them they have a virus and bloody well sort it!

No! It's never a good idea to send infected emails back to anybody. After all, in doing so you are simlpy doing the virus' job for it and further clogging up the interweb thingy.

[sgrimshaw]

yellow peril said:

A good virus checker will chuck them out......

I agree that a good virus checker is paramount these days, however they can, and do, get caught out.

The virus scanner people are always playing "catch-up" with the sad bds that write this crap.

A good tip I found once, to at least alert you to the fact that one of these "address book hijackers" is on your system is to create a ficticious email address as the first contact in your address book. That way if a hijacker sends emails using your address, you will get a returned email from your ISP saying the email can't be delivered.

For example the first contact in my address book is:

Name : ____aaaa
Email: ____!"£a@$$£.com

At least you then know that you have a problem.

This has worked for me in the past. My virus checker is updated daily, and still one got through. At least I was able to quickly send an email to all my contacts telling them not to open the previous email.

Simon

[Derek Smith]

simpo two said:

For some weeks I've been getting the odd e-mail purportedly from TVRCC addresses. [e-mail] [e-mail] [e-mail]

For information: If I intend to send an attachement to anyone I will send an email beforehand to warn them and to tell them what's in it. So if it is from [e-mail] and you are not expecting it, delete it with my blessing.

I would ask everyone to keep their virus-checker up-to-date, especially those who have an extensive address book. My spam folder tops 50 every day and in a bit over an hour I once received 62! That's not the main problem. What happens, of course, is that I delete a harmless email from someone because I think it's a virus. It's infuriating.

Derek,
Editor TVR Sprint

[sgrimshaw]

Derek Smith said:

simpo two said: For some weeks I've been getting the odd e-mail purportedly from TVRCC addresses. [e-mail] [e-mail] [e-mail] For information: If I intend to send an attachement to anyone I will send an email beforehand to warn them and to tell them what's in it. So if it is from [e-mail] and you are not expecting it, delete it with my blessing. I would ask everyone to keep their virus-checker up-to-date, especially those who have an extensive address book. My spam folder tops 50 every day and in a bit over an hour I once received 62! That's not the main problem. What happens, of course, is that I delete a harmless email from someone because I think it's a virus. It's infuriating. Derek, Editor TVR Sprint

So Derek,

Did you by any chance happend to delete the email I sent you, which had an article for Sprint attached?

Simon

[yellow peril]

sgrimshaw said:

yellow peril said: A good virus checker will chuck them out...... I agree that a good virus checker is paramount these days, however they can, and do, get caught out. is to create a ficticious email address as the first contact in your address book. That way if a hijacker sends emails using your address, you will get a returned email from your ISP saying the email can't be delivered. For example the first contact in my address book is: Name : ____aaaa Email: ____!"£a@$$£.com At least you then know that you have a problem. This has worked for me in the past. Simon

Mine is 'a'
[e-mail]

Never had it back yet thank goodness.

I'm a bit concerned now though at what will happen after I've installed Windows Service Pack 2. Will the new Windows firewall and stuff run and be compatable with Norton.?

Anyone had any experience of this?

...//P//

[sgrimshaw]

yellow peril said:

Mine is 'a' [e-mail] Never had it back yet thank goodness.

Is there's a chance that BT's Spam Filter would catch the returned email becuase of the word "virus" in the address?

Easy way to find out

Simon

[diddyman]

It's a remailer virus.

Get a piece of free software called Mailwasher from www.mailwasher.com

You can bounce, delete & blacklist emails, filter them and all "server side" so you can actually read a lot of the information without it actually getting to your computer. It's a great bit of kit and saves a lot of time with potential viruses.

[yellow peril]

No...it's fine.
To be honest......I never thought of the spam blocker......
I always thought that virus emails contained virused attachments.
Seems to work okay though...ISP returned it as undeliverable.



...//P//

[kevinday]

XP Service Pack 2 appears to be incompatible with some versions of Nero.

[jam1et]

Check out this MS KB Article. It lists programs which are known to be affected by XP SP2. And yes, Norton AV is one of them.

[IPAddis]

I've finally found a way of reliably tagging the 150+ spam emails I get per day. It's by using a utility which scans any IP addresses in the header against real time blacklists (RBLs) maintained on the internet.

The tool I use is a free one called ORFilter (http://martijnjongen.com/Default.aspx?tabid=27) which is for MS Exchange. There are other ones which work with Outlook and POP accounts. This catches 99.9% of the spam emails.

Popular RBLs are spamcop.net, dsbl.org, njabl.org and surbl.org

Edited to add, the personal blacklist based software and Outlook 2003 built in junk mail filtering were pants by comparison.

Ian A.

>> Edited by IPAddis on Thursday 30th September 13:58

[yellow peril]

jam1et said:

Check out this MS KB Article. It lists programs which are known to be affected by XP SP2. And yes, Norton AV is one of them.

Bu99er!!

Thanks for that...will have a look

...//P//