Is anyone else on this board getting crazy amounts of.....

[pjv911]

I have been getting 5-10 emails daily that offer minimum description but containing attachments. The titles read many different things like "try my new game" and "opinion needed" or one that even said "Hi Kurt eager to see you"

I havent opened any of these but I bet they are viruses.
I only visit this board and ebay so I feel it must originate from this board. Anyone else getting these ?

Kurt Williams

[nostatic]

They are from the widow with the cars. You thought they were "free", but as you are finding out, everything has a price.

You'll be spammed for the next 5 years of 50,000 miles, whichever comes first.

[ChrisBennet]

Last week I got loads of them. I doubt it has anything to do with this board. Most likely it is one of those viruses that uses a person's email address book to propagate itself.
-Chris

[silverc4s]

They are from the 625 guys waiting PATIENTLY to see what's up with your "CRAZY LADY'S GONNA GIVE ME TWO 911S FOR FREE!!!" story.....

[john70t]

A couple of weeks ago, before Windows crashed and burned for the third time, a repeat from before happened: My Zonealarm(free firewall thats rated as one of the best) started blinking like a turn signal.
The next day windows wouldn't shut down properly, and a week later on every boot there would be a "invalid system disk" with nothing in the A drive. I was also getting popups like "do you want to allow your computer to be a server", and saw "server" in the close-programs box(cntrol/alt/delete once!)

It only happened on this board and on a few, specific days.

There may be a mischevous (to put it very nicely) someone who is using this board for a different agenda so beware all and get a fire wall.

You can also get free virus checkers at www.symantec.com (Norton antivirus)

[Bill Douglas]

Actually... I don't usually get those but after I sent an email to PP I got alot for the next two weeks. One was from a name like CarlosNZ@hotmail.com, or something like that, and I know there is a Carlos in New Zealand that goes to this BBS. And all the attachments did contain a virus. So usual story - don't run the .exe

[wckrause]

I'm getting strange emails with no attachments, no body, and just a short oddball subject. The weird thing is the email size is over 100K, but there's no attachment.

It goes to a different email address then I use for this board.

[Jack Olsen]

I get them too. I assume they're from a virus that sends a small attachment to everyone on a computer's email address list.

Does anyone know more?

[Fishcop]

I get them too, only they normally read "You said to let you know when I had my new webcam up" normally from a female sender...

Oh, maybe that's a different board!

[emcon5]

John, I really doubt that anyone on the board is trying to hack you, primarily because only 3 people on this board can even see your IP address. Wayne, Jack Olsen, and old_skull.

There are lots of nasty stuff out there, some of which you can install on your PC without being aware of it.

If you are running Kazza or Morpheous, you probably installed at the very least some spyware that tracks your web usage. One of them includes a distributed computing program that uses your PC to do computations when your screen saver is running. A few included trojans that will allow other people to access your stuff. Here are a few simple things to protect yourself:

Get a antivirus program and keep it updated. Symantec and Mcafee are 2 of the better known versions that will update themselves.

Get a personal firewall. This is especially important if you have a broadband internet connection and never turn off your PC. Zone Alarm is really good, very intuitive and free. Hard to beat that combination.

Don't open email attachments unless you know exactly what they are. Some of the new mail viruses spread by sending themselve to everyone in the address book of an infected PC. Newer strains also change the "from" field to hid who is really infected.

Keep your operating system current. Go to the Windows Update site and get all the critical and security updates.

This will probably irritate some people, but don't use Microsoft products if you can help it. Microsoft has what can only be described as a horrible track record when it comes to security. Most of the current viruses/worms out there exploit known holes in Outlook or Internet Explorer.

Jack, I will send you my email address off line, forward the curious mail to me, I will tell you what it is.

Tom
(Mozilla for browser and mail, Zone Alarm and Mcafee to keep the bugs out)

[Wayne 962]

There's no viruses on this server, I have it locked down very, very tight. I also am running Norton AV for servers (Corporate Edition) on it with daily updates, and real-time virus scans...

-Wayne

[Fishcop]

Tom, thanks for the computer info. Where can one get Mozilla?

Cheers

[emcon5]

Originally posted by Fishcop
Tom, thanks for the computer info. Where can one get Mozilla?

Cheers

mozilla.org

The only real downside to it is that some plug-ins dont work quite right, and once every other week or so you will go to a web page that is written so poorly it only works right in Internet Explorer.

A major upside, there is a built in setting to disable pop-up advertisements. I haven't seen an X10 ad for months, (WHOHOO!)

Tom

[nostatic]

We've seen some odd ones lately with very legal sounding text in the body, and attachments with .com extensions. Our servers have stringent scanning and quarantine software, but other boxes on campus are not so secure.

Running OS X on a Mac means that almost all of these viruses are nothing more than an annoyance propagated (usually unknowingly) by windoze users. Outlook is especially bad and letting viruses send email to everyone in the exchange address list.

I run Mail.app and OmniWeb browser...and so far (knock on wood) no need for antivirus software.

[APKhaos]

Tom,
Good advice!
Got a link to some more info on the Kazza issue?
My son loaded it, and Zone Alarm lit up with attempts to open incoming ftp connections. I'm guessing this may have been an attempt to add procs to Kazza??
Thanx,
Tony [emil on profile]

[emcon5]

Originally posted by APKhaos
Tom,
Good advice!
Got a link to some more info on the Kazza issue?

Here is one.
http://www.zdnet.com/anchordesk/stories/story/0,10738,2859775,00.html

For more, a Google search for kazaa spyware should turn up a pile of info.

Tom

[claptrap]

Alternatives to what has been suggested, I used Lavasoft
ad-aware to scan for spyware, and sygate personal firewall
at www.sygate.com/products Both are free.

Scott

[HawgRyder]

Personally I use Linux....the nice thing about it....if you do not assign permissions to each file...they cannot run.
When viruses come down the wire I never see them...they are erased at the server where they should be destroyed.
Bob

[pwd72s]

Maybe this computer neophyte/illiterate is lucky...no problems here yet. But, we do send $ to McAfee, and whenever they offer an update, we click on it. Perhaps that's why I've been "lucky"?

[john70t]

Thanks for the info Emcon5, I was running ad-aware as well and was still getting strange hits on Zonealarm (even with deleting cookies with "eraser").
The junk mail is down to about 5 a day thankfully, and once upon a time I did have "Kaza" installed. After I sent a frantic note to Wayne I followed up and found it was from the Kaza port.

The strange thing was, I had uninstalled Kaza and reinstalled Windows after erasing it, and it alll happened in one day while I was on this board (what a coinsidence ) without getting a tap for months before.

I also heard about another program called "unplug and pray" which, combined with the lastest security updates from MS should help somewhat.