Porsche-Related Virus Warning

[pbanders]

No, this is not a hoax. It may be a coincidence, but it would be quite a stretch.

I received an email at pbanders@yahoo.com this morning from "otto", whose email is porsche1@cyberverse.com . Here's the text of the message:

Hi! How are you?

I send you this file in order to have your advice

See you later. Thanks

There was a file attachment, minel.xls. I thought that given the name and the "porsche1" part of the email address, this might be from Otto of Otto's of Venice, who posts here frequently. NO, IT WAS NOT FROM OTTO - just wanted to make that clear.

I thought the message text looked like virus email scripts I've seen, so I scanned the attachment - yup, it had SirCam in it, a particularly nasty virus. Replies to the "porsche1@cyberverse.com" showed that it wasn't a real account.

Considering that I'm on two other Porsche/FI related Yahoo Groups, plus Pelican Parts BBS with my pbanders@yahoo.com address, it could have come from any of those lists. But just a warning to be careful before you open any attachment, even if it looks like it's from someone you know, or might be a Porsche list member.

[Dave at Pelican Parts]

SirCam always sends a message that starts out as follows:

Hi! How are you?

I send you this file in order to have your advice

That's your key to delete it instantly. SirCam is one of those lovely viruses that digs up your Outlook address book and sends itself to everyone in there.

I don't think the attack was deliberate--someone simply had you in their address book somehow or another, and when SirCam sent itself to everyone in that person's address book you were hit. I've gotten a couple dozen or more of these messages. Happily, Pelican's e-mail server detects and trashes the viral attachments. Plus I'm not running an OS that can be hit by it... "LINUX means never having to say 'I LOVE YOU'!"

Consider this as yet another warning to have the latest virus definitions for your anti-virus software!!

--DD

[SteveStromberg]

I have been getting 150k messages from "914" I ave not opened them as I suspected they were tainted. Steve

[Dave at Pelican Parts]

If you use IE or Outlook to read your mail, dig through the preferences until you find the one that lets you turn off automatic Visual Basic script running.

That should keep you from catching a virus just by reading an e-mail. Either that, or don't use MicroSloth software with brain-dead-stupid default settings.

Who knows, perhaps it's the daily digest from the Yahoo 914 e-mail list?

--DD

[Special K]

Here's a little trick that I'm told will work with those virus' that go through your address book and send themselves to everyone you know.

Make a new contact in your address book whose name is "AAA", or whatever it takes to make sure it's #1 on your address book listing. Then put in some bogus e-mail address that won't connect to anything. Your "Outlook Express" will give you a message that the e-mail address is invalid, but go ahead and accept it. When/if you receive an e-mail containing a virus, the virus will start at the beginning of your address book, and since the first contact is a B*ll***** address and won't send and the virus terminates. When Outlook Express tries to send an e-mail, and doesn't succeed it will give you a message stating so. This is your warning that you've got a virus (AAA didn't connect) It won't save your computer from getting it, but it should protect the people in your address book.

Okay, here's the disclaimer. I am not a computer wiz, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night