In the last 2 hours I’ve recieved about 50 pieces of what looks like junk mail, mostly with the same few subjects: “Approval”, “Re;Wicked Screensaver”, “re:your application” etc. Anyone else getting this? I know that there’s a virus flying around Air Canada’s network, I’m wondering if they’re related.
when i was hit with the microsoft worm, i was getting the same thing, only my computer shut down automatically every 15-20 minutes. i recommend scanning your computer with an up-2-date (some people forget that part) antivirus. then perform a disk maintance. if you need any help. pm me.
I always get “increase penis size” “horny milfs waiting for you” “best travel deals” and a bunch of other sex shit. I never give out my email. It just pisses me off.
Odds are that just spam you’re getting and not a virus. Email based viruses tend to have attachments that once opened run scripts/macros that’ll infect everyone on your contact list.
If you’re using MS Outlook 2002 you can setup filters so emails with the certain subjects are automatically deleted or sent to the trash. There’s also software that will bounce back spam so the sender will receive errors when trying to send you shit.
Have a read of the below…
It sounds very much like the W32/Sobig virus…
Cheers…Stubob…
its a virus.
An update: I ran the FixWelch application, which turned up nothing. The bit that seems weird to me is that I use a web-based email (excite), and my computer is working fine. Any other clues? Thanks boys.
Yeah - what’s with all the ‘Cumslurping beauties’, ‘Michelle too hot’, and so forth, emails I’ve been getting?
Sheesh, you’d even think I’ve been visiting these places.
Oh wait. Nevermind that.
Here’s what you do:
DO NOT open spam emails. Why? As soon as you open it the sender knows your your email is active. Just leave it unopened, untouched. Thye’ll eventually come to the conclusion your email must be unused, and quit selling it to other companies in mailing lists. They might even quit emailing you themselves lol.
It is the Sobig virus. This basically sets up a mailer on your system and uses you to send emails. It makes no difference if you open the mails or not. If you are in the address book of a person who has teh virus then your email is being used as a ‘from’ email even if you are not infected.
If you have a Windows machine and have not kept your security patches up to date you are vulnerable. If you do not have a firewall you are vulnerable.
I got 3000 messages in 12 hours, but I’m on a mac so I’m not part of the problem.
The Denial of Service emails are bounces from other accounts that know ‘you’ are sending them a virus. Even if your computer is not infected, your email addres may be being used as a ‘from’ email, so you’ll get tons of bounces.
Fun fun fun… I HATE PC’s!!!
michelle, how is being on a mac not part of the problem…it is the problem!! haha I hate macs
Because my MAC is not one of the problem computers!!!
My MAC can not turn itself into a mail server and use my addres book to send out a few thousand emails.
My MAC has only a handful of worms and not one virus - whereas the PC has thousands upon thousands of worms and many thousand more viruses.
Yes, get a MAC and be nearly imune to all the shit that is out there.
Disclaimer: PC’s running Linux and Unix are also very virus resistant.
If you’re getting “returned mail” notices, it may not be you that has the virus.
SoBig and its variants use addresses culled from the infected computer’s address book(s) and use various combinations of these names as sent-from and send-to.
Sometimes you can look in the header of the email to find the name, IP, and ISP of the infected computer, and then you can call your “friend” and tell them to clean it up.
If you don’t know what that means, it’s better just to delete the email and not worry about it - this one expires next month anyway.
Yup, dat be a virus!
I don’t get spam in my main email account. None. I imagine that the ISP does a good job of filtering. Another tip is to set up a Hotmail or Yahoo account. If you ever have to give your email address out to sign up for something, give the secondary one out. Also, you may be able to do your own filtering. Hotmail has a keyword filter. For example, I filter out things like “penis, sex, save, grow, credit, win.” You could also filter out your name in your email address. ie if your address was jsmith@shortbus.net, then filter “jsmith.”
Hope this helps someone.
Michelle that is funny! Any computer regardless of operating system can be turned into whatever. Just because it hasn’t happen to you doesn’t mean it’s not possible. The only way to be completely safe is to unplug your modem/ethernet connection.
Now for those who resort to switching from PC to Mac in order to solve the problem, you should know better. Apple has for the longest time pumped people full of BS surveys showing how much faster their cpu/products are compared to PC’s although any statistician can skew data to her favor. Now when other non-apple companies do this they get sued by Apple, wtf? In my district you’ll notice macs are kept in elementary schools and special ed departments (Califnornia k-12)… I wonder why?
Ok, now on to linux/unix. The average user is not going to know how the hell to install either and might I remind you that both systems or rather any flavor of it have hundreds of scripts that allow the common root access (admin), and have several other malicious exploits.
So really it comes down to knowing what you’re doing with the OS you use rather than switching to Mac, and for those unfortunate souls that do…it’s not going to solve the problem.
*Sorry for the rant but I had to get it out of my system, and sorry if it sounds like I’m picking on you Michelle…I’m not. Have a nice day 
don’t worry about it Chuy, I under stand that you are blinded by Microshit grin
In any case, I have a firewall at my house to stop that crap before it starts. Also, Macs are extremely hard to write viruses for because of the system architecture… and because we are only about 12% of the market most writers just don’t bother.
This debate is never ending anyway, I am a programmer and have worked 100% on PC’s for the past 5 years. I know them quite well, and I’ll take my Mac any day.
How about Lindows!?! :D)
Most viruses are designed to take advantage of the vulnerabilities in Windows. But any system can get a virus.
The msblast worm could have been blocked by something as simple as Zone Alarm. By the way, if you don’t have a router, I highly recommend using Zone Alarm - it’s free! Also make sure to keep up with your Windows updates and updates to your antivirus software. Protection from the worm was available about a month before it came out.
Someone PM’d me about setting up filters in Hotmail. In the main screen after loggin in, clcik on OPTIONS and look at the junk mail filtering.
Feel free to PM me if you have any questions!
Staley, I’ve been getting the same thing the last 2 days(same messages). I ran a virus scan and I found one virus. Hopefully that is the problem.