virus

[Sumpter250]

I got the following warning from the administrator of GCLaser's web site: If you recieve an email entitled "just for you", or, "Here you have it",.....do not open it! it's designed to steal your identity information, and trash your computer.
Our site administrator is an IT professional, so I have a tendency to believe her.

[ezdays]

About 95% of the email I get warning me of one thing or the other turns out false. But this one appears to be real. I always go to Snoops.com to verify what the email is telling me, and this time they say it is an old virus, but still lingers in some people's computers and is still a danger. You can thank the IT person that warned you. One thing I never do, even if I know the person, is to open an attachment without first verifying that they sent it. This virus apparently replicates itself and sends it out as an email to everyone on the infected computer's mailing addresses so it may appear to be from someone you know.

[tetters]

Thanks for the heads up.

Since we are on the topic of e-mail virus' and their malicious attachments, other subject lines that I stay away from are, "Hey check this out!!!", "Did you miss me?" & "Important info! Please read!" The best one is the blank subject line, where nothing has been written, it just has the text "RE:" in the e-mail subject line. An IT friend told me that this is Trojan Virus sending out e-mails forwarded from someone's address book in an effort to spread itself further. :evil:

[steinjr]

I got the following warning from the administrator of GCLaser's web site: If you recieve an email entitled "just for you", or, "Here you have it",.....do not open it! it's designed to steal your identity information, and trash your computer.
Our site administrator is an IT professional, so I have a tendency to believe her.

Opening an email will not thrash your computer and steal your identity, if you have a normal email program and a normal anti-virus program with a realtime scanner.

Opening an *attachment* that can contain programs (ie exe files, various microsoft products with macros etc) may thrash your computer. A normal anti-virus program with a real time scanner will usually caution you if you try to open a dangerous attachment, but it is very often a bad idea to open a file attachment you have received without having asked for it from the sender.

"Stealing you identity information" is not that easy to do - it usually happens not because of viruses, but because people foolishly or greedily hand out their information by email or on web pages - falling for things like ye olde Nigerian scam ("I have access to a pile of money no one will miss, and I'll split it with you, if I can just borrow your bank account number and some information from you - keep it hush-hush").

It's not the title that decides whether an email is dangerous. It is not email in itself. It is foolish behavior around attachments and poor judgment when asked for information that is dangerous.

In the case of the mentioned virus, you need to first open what appears to be an unsolicited PDF file, which will redirect you to a web site, which will ask you to download and run a screen save (ie a program).

As I said - risky behavior around unsolicited attachments. But just opening the email won't do a thing to harm you.

Grin,
Stein

[Selector]

I just received this morning a message from a known MRR with at least one name I recognized in his huge AG, and there was no title...it was blank. I ash-canned it.

Crandell

[ezdays]

... As I said - risky behavior around unsolicited attachments. But just opening the email won't do a thing to harm you.

Grin,
Stein

You are right, the email itself is not the problem, it's the attachment. And it's risky at best even if you have an A/V program since you can't be sure if it has a known signature. I don't even want to take the chance that my A/V could miss a known virus, one has to have a lot of faith that the net will catch you when you jump into it. I'd rather not jump than have to worry. From what I've been reading, clicking on a link could be harmful, something about a "drive by" where it tries to load something just by going to the site. Then again, you should be protected in the event something there tries to load a rogue program. It's when you say, "OK" that gets you into trouble, so it's best not to get into that situation in the first place.

[steinjr]

... As I said - risky behavior around unsolicited attachments. But just opening the email won't do a thing to harm you.

Grin,
Stein

You are right, the email itself is not the problem, it's the attachment. And it's risky at best even if you have an A/V program since you can't be sure if it has a known signature. I don't even want to take the chance that my A/V could miss a known virus, one has to have a lot of faith that the net will catch you when you jump into it. I'd rather not jump than have to worry. From what I've been reading, clicking on a link could be harmful, something about a "drive by" where it tries to load something just by going to the site. Then again, you should be protected in the event something there tries to load a rogue program. It's when you say, "OK" that gets you into trouble, so it's best not to get into that situation in the first place.

Right. And the way to avoid getting in trouble is to understand (at least in rough terms) what you are doing.

Passing on warnings of "do not open emails with these titles" is mostly useless. Instead of depending on trying to remember a random list of "must not open emails with these titles", you remember that you don't click on links or open attachments in emails you receive, unless it comes from someone you know, and it either contains something you have asked them to send to you, or there is an adequate explanation for why it is being sent to you. "This is so cool" or "You got to look at this" are not adequate explanations for me.

Keeping your anti-virus software up to date comes in addition to that, and is an added safety net. Keeping your email program (and web browser and operating system etc) up to date by routinely subscribing to security fixes is a very good idea as well.

But it all comes back to understanding what you are doing. There is nothing magical about computer software, including viruses, worms and Trojans. Opening an email is normally harmless in itself. Opening an unsolicited attachment or clicking on links to unknown web pages may cause damage.

Smile,
Stein

[ezdays]

One also has to be careful clicking on links, even those that turn up in a Google search. Yesterday I was looking up a particular subject and clicked on something that turned up early in a search results. It wasn't at all related to what Google said it was, it was instead a picture of a man and woman and I didn't hang around to see or read beyond that since I suspected that I didn't really belong there. This is something I don't know how to protect against. Someone has found a way to trick Google into falsely bringing people to their site and it's tough not to fall into that trap.