[NTLK] [INFO] Recent E-Mail Viruses

From: Victor Rehorst (victor_at_newtontalk.net)
Date: Sat Oct 12 2002 - 15:55:11 EDT


[Before anyone says anything about viruses vs. virii, let me point out that
'viruses' is recognized by Webster's Dictionary, while virii is not.]

There are two recent e-mail worms that have been spreading rampantly for the
past few weeks or months. They are known as Klez or Bugbear. THEY AFFECT
WINDOWS OS COMPUTERS ONLY. Both are spread by attaching their malicious
program to an e-maail, exploiting security weaknesses in Microsoft mail
clients, as well as faking information in the e-mail in order to convince the
recipient that the attachment is legit.

They also happen to be very good at spoofing e-mail addresses. Once they have
infected a machine, they will harvest e-mail addresses from the Windows
address book and use those addresses as From: addresses, as well as To:
addresses. In addition, they may also use subject lines and message bodies
from saved e-mails. In this way, some people have been receiving mails that
contain these viruses that *appear* to have come from NewtonTalk, and may
appear to contain legitimate material.

None of these messages have actually come from NewtonTalk. I want to clear
that up :)

If you are running Windows on your computer and receiving e-mail to it, you
should protect yourself by:

- employing a virus scanner that automatically updates its virus definitions,
as well as scans your incoming e-mail before it is delivered to your inbox.
Two popular products are Norton Antivirus by Symantec, and McAfee VirusScan,
by NAI.

- not opening any attachments if you do not expect to receive them.

- if you use Microsoft Outlook 98 or 2000, install the Outlook E-Mail Security
update from Microsoft:
http://office.microsoft.com/assistance/2000/Out2ksecFAQ.aspx
(this update is already included in Outlook 2002 and Outlook XP)

-- 
Victor Rehorst - victor_at_newtontalk.net - chuma_at_chuma.org
NewtonTalk list administrator - http://www.newtontalk.net
Will help you with your list problems - as long as you're nice.

-- Read the List FAQ/Etiquette: http://www.newtontalk.net/faq.html Read the Newton FAQ: http://www.chuma.org/newton/faq/ This is the NewtonTalk mailing list - http://www.newtontalk.net/



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