Virus warning

[P.V.]

Anyone-using Internet mail such as Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL and so on. This information arrived this morning, Direct from both Microsoft and Norton Please send it to everybody you know who has Access to the Internet. You may receive an apparently harmless e-mail titled 'Mail Server Report' If you open either file, a message will appear on your screen saying: 'It is too late now, your life is no longer beautiful....'

Subsequently you will LOSE EVERYTHING IN YOUR PC, And the person who sent it to you will gain access to your Name, e-mail and password. This is a new virus which started to circulate on Saturday afternoon. AOL has already confirmed the severity, and the anti virus software's are not capable of destroying it..

The virus has been created by a hacker who calls himself 'life owner'.



THIS HAS BEEN CONFIRMED BY SNOPES..

 

[Mousey]

...tsk ... tsk...

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[The Dude]

...THIS HAS BEEN CONFIRMED BY SNOPES...

...as a hoax

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[nerv]

Hoax

Actually, you got one...that email you mentioned belong to one of sub-categories of viruses. It is called HOAX EMAIL virus. Intention of this hoax virus is not to warn you about any of real virus treat but to produce mass-mailing.

Note last sentence: "Forward this message to all you know" - this is the sole purpose of the email you received.

 

[nerv]

oooppss..

I'm to late with my post - second goal of Brazil is to blame

...it seems there is a new treat from these hoaxes...to produce mass-replying

 

[P.V.]

Sorry guys, guess they got me. I thought the darn thing was new.

 

[Luckylizzy]

I think it was nice of you to warn us even if it was late Thanks!

 

[lots0]

#1 RULE - NEVER open any email attachment unless you are expecting it.

@lizzy I see your busy building you post numbers with meaningless posts... just what I would expect a shill to do.

 

[bgermain1985]

I have some things to say on the subject of net security, while we are talking about it.

Generally speaking, any email that has you send it to 20+ friend you know, is used exactly as nerv mentioned. It is a social engineering technique to datamine email addresses that can be used as raw data for bulk messaging services.

There are a couple uses of emails, the first being sale value where a premium is paid for confirmed email addresses.

Also issues include phishing (wide attempts) and spear phising (single attempts), to gain more information about you in efforts to associate your personal information to an email and/or extract funds, goods, or other information from you.

When in doubt, avoid clicking links with .js in the name and/or heavy usage of % characters in the URL. Excessive usage of override characters is intended to mask a true purpose for a given link and should be avoided.

Additionally, you should never keep open 'secure connections' ie. bank, shopping etc, while you are browsing the web and clicking on 'suspicious links' because its possible that a javascript can extract your browser cookies for a live session giving someone temporary access to your financials.

References:

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(application level)

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(definition and examples)

 

[vinylweatherman]

I have some things to say on the subject of net security, while we are talking about it.

Generally speaking, any email that has you send it to 20+ friend you know, is used exactly as nerv mentioned. It is a social engineering technique to datamine email addresses that can be used as raw data for bulk messaging services.

There are a couple uses of emails, the first being sale value where a premium is paid for confirmed email addresses.

Also issues include phishing (wide attempts) and spear phising (single attempts), to gain more information about you in efforts to associate your personal information to an email and/or extract funds, goods, or other information from you.

When in doubt, avoid clicking links with .js in the name and/or heavy usage of % characters in the URL. Excessive usage of override characters is intended to mask a true purpose for a given link and should be avoided.

Additionally, you should never keep open 'secure connections' ie. bank, shopping etc, while you are browsing the web and clicking on 'suspicious links' because its possible that a javascript can extract your browser cookies for a live session giving someone temporary access to your financials.

References:

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(application level)

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(definition and examples)

I have also noticed that some links are completely masked. Normally, if I hover over a link in Outlook, I can see the TRUE URL in the bottom left. This usually warns of phishing, because the link often shows TRUE as "mybank(dot).com(dot)<other stuff>".

Masked links show as nothing at all, and I avoid these unless I fully trust the email as genuine and expected.

Casinomeister also has these "masked" links in the accredited section (but I trust him). I hover over the link to a casino, but my browser does not show me the true URL in the bottom bar as is normally the case.

I do not know exactly what is going on, but suspect these are not simple links, but embedded applets that then direct to a website. I have read about "bookmarklets", where one can place a small JAVA applet in the Favourites section of IE, and have it operate as a URL, but run a small program instead. This might also be what is going on with all these override characters in some links, and the ".js" in the name. (.js is something to do with JAVA I believe).

The above COULD have been true though, since it is webmail, and could execute a program exploiting a flaw in the browser software, from which it might gain access to your PC, and plant a virus. This is probably why people WILL mail this to friends, or even post a warning on their favourite forum

 

[The Dude]

When you click on any text links on the main site, they are routed though my banner rotation software. This way I can keep track of a link's stats. Nothing dubious here

In the newsletter, the same thing happens, but this is through topica - the third party software I use for managing the newsletters. It won't show the real URL. You just gotta trust me

@ bgermain1985 - some really good tips there. Thanks!