Beware of email... ERA CARS

[Gordon Claunch]

Hi Guy's, If you recieve an email titled eracars do not open it is a virus sent by some a$$hole obviously targeting cobra owners, I thought it was safe and opened it, since I assumed it was from era I usually won't open from someone I don't know, be aware!!

[BLACKJACK]

DAMM - -

THOSE CORVETTE DRIVERS WILL DO ANYTHING - - -


GORDON: THANKS FOR THE "HEADS-UP".

Y'ALL HAVE A REALLY GREAT DAY,

BLACKJACK

[computerworks]

Gordon... it may not have been from ERA.

The Klez virus infects a machine and sends out infected e-mails at random to people in the Address Book and spoofs the header to make it look like it came from people in the same Address Book.

[Bob Putnam]

The Klez is still ubiquitous, and I've been getting a new one the last few days. 20 infected pieces in one day from the same address. Sheesh.

No one should get a virus-infested e-mail from me. I don't use Outlook at all - AOL and Netscape only. And my address book is minimal. Plus, I use Norton AV almost daily...

[Excaliber]

I stopped using Outlook for this very reason. It's to easy to target your address book. I do recall something about putting in a "bogus" e-mail address in Outlook that will be listed as the FIRST entry, either AA or 00 as the "name". The virus will attempt to "deal with that address first" and it will fail and will not process any further address'.

Details anybody?

Ernie

[computerworks]

Ernie...
A while back, several e-mail chains were circulated, claiming a "trick" to thwart these e-mail / address book viruses:

"Messages that claim that you can prevent the spread of email worms and Trojans by adding a special "trick" entry as the first contact in your email address book appear fairly frequently. Among the "names" that they suggest that you add to your address book are:

!0000
AAAAAA

The usual claim is that this will, in one way or another, stop the threat from spreading. While these are in the strictest definition of the word, not hoaxes (although the AAAAA version, with its recommendation to "Pass this on to all your friends" is close), like hoaxes, they should be ignored and not forwarded."

Symantec (Norton AntiVirus) replied about this "trick":

"--in theory, it could work with a few older worms and viruses--Symantec Security Response STRONGLY recommends that you ignore it. You should not rely on such "fixes" to prevent the spread of viruses, worms, and Trojans. Also, a hacker could exploit some variants of this message to make you more susceptible to loss of confidential information. The best defense against such threats is to have a current version of Norton AntiVirus installed, make sure that Auto-Protect is enabled, and update your virus definitions frequently. In addition, if you are on a network, or if you have a full-time connection to the Internet (such as cable or DSL), you should use firewall software. "

[Excaliber]

Thanks for the up-date on that Ron. NAV is my first line of defense, ALWAYS. I'm still to paranoid to use Outlook at this point.

Ernie

[Robb]

Warnings about viruses, are obsolete.

Running virus software, is not.

People on the internet that dont run virus software, have no room to complain when they get a virus, for whatever reason.

You dont go running through the woods without clothes on, for a reason.
And if you do, then dont stop to warn others about the thorns.


-Robb

[Ron61]

I have my Norton's set to automatically update any new virus definitions any time I am on line and it is amazing at how many have shown up just over the past week or so. If I have a question about an e-mail and it looks somewhat familiar I download it to a 3 1/2 inch floppy and then scan it. So far I have caught five viruses this way and I just format the floppy and that is the end of them.


Ron