War story (probably)

[greyorm]

I'm also going to go out on a limb and suggest that it was targetted at members of this board, considering how many people here have received it, and the specificity of the message.

Don't get too paranoid, Clay, this virus was reported in the wild a week before anyone on the boards here got it.

[Ian O'Rourke]

I got that Risus.zip one as well - which I thought was weird due to it being role-playing related. It asked me to check it out and tell 'him' what I thought.

Since it was a .zip and the sender was an invalid address I just deleted it - which bastard has me in their address book then? :smile:

Saying that I believe MJ sent an apology to a few people because his computer was infected - whether this is related I have no idea.

[Mike Holmes]

On 2001-07-31 08:21, Ian O'Rourke wrote:
I got that Risus.zip one as well - which I thought was weird due to it being role-playing related. It asked me to check it out and tell 'him' what I thought.

Since it was a .zip and the sender was an invalid address I just deleted it - which bastard has me in their address book then? :smile:

Me too. No return address, so I killed it. I am on that list as well it would seem. Almost fell for it because people have been sending me lots of stuff of late.

And I have gotten mail from MJ before. Hmmm.....

Mike Holmes

[Ben Morgan]

I can tell you it's got nothing to do with this board. I received one of these over a month ago, and I've only recently arrived here in the last week or so.

The first piece of advice is don't run any attachments you didn't ask for specifically, even from someone you know. If it is from someone you know, you can confirm the validity of the file. If not, then they have no business sending you files to begin with.

Also, these things seem to rely on Outlook to spread. If you use a different email program, you reduce the risk of  infecting others (unless someone's modified the code recently).

[FilthySuperman]

Just a few little snippets to be the helpful superhero I am.

First off, it's not just outlook users that need to be wary.
Outlook is a prime target for virus/worm spreading, but and SMTP, PPP, or POP3 address book can be used. I just put up with a nasty little CodeRed outbreak here at work that attacked our users all over the place. We had one person who's machine was sending out 2-3 hundred emails every second hour. The beauty of this particular virus was, he was using a Novell based email client and it was able to replicate and send itself using our Novell, NT, and SMTP clients. It's been said a billion times, but it can't be said enough: As a rule don't open unsolicited email, and NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVER open a file attachment sent via email that you did not SPECIFICALLY request. It's sad, as indie gamers we want to help people out, but your own mother could email you a destructive virus without knowing it. For those of you who get sick and tired of getting viruses emailed to you and want to do something about it..
when you recieve a virus or possible virus in your email:

First notify YOUR isp.
Then notify Thier isp.
if they use a free email client such as hotmail or yahoo don't let that stop you from contacting people. Contact hotmail or Yahoo and tell them that such and such user was sending viruses. Sending computer viruses over the internet is a Federal crime and as such, can be investigated in completion. Which means, if said person has caused damage (especially in a government system) then they WILL be backtraced and they'll find out who "supersexygirl@hotmail.com" is. There is very little true anonymity on the internet, and certainly not as much as people think there is.

Hope this is helpful, if anyone here has any security or technical questions feel free to drop me a line.

If you are wondering whether or not I'm qualified to give advice on this matter...
Well :razz: any of you in the U.S.of A. paying taxes are already paying me to do it anyway.

T

[Ben Morgan]

Thanks for the info. It seems the little bastards have been working overtime (Though when haven't they been; Anyone remember the Jerusalem-B virus? Or the Pakistani Brain?).

[Ron Edwards]

Gentlemen etc,

I believe this thread is now dead. Please let it lie.

Best,
Ron