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Thread ID: 44842 2004-05-01 21:07:00 Sick of receiving infected emails Antonia (730) Press F1
Post ID Timestamp Content User
233512 2004-05-01 21:07:00 Windows XP, Eudora, Mailwasher, Free AVG antivirus.

For a month or so we are receiving up to 25 (worm ?) infected emails daily.
We use mailwasher, so they are all blacklisted or deleted. We have over 125 on our blacklist.
Attachments are text.pif and mainly 41kb or 57kb.They come more than once from same (apparent) sender. We even receive them from ourselves.

Updated AVG or Trend Housecall do not detect a virus on our computer.Where is the problem and is there anything we can do to solve it.

This is part of an email we received from our own email address this morning:

Return-path: <johntina@free.net.nz>
Received: from smtp2.compass.net.nz (unverified [203.97.100.4]) by free.net.nz
(Rockliffe SMTPRA 5.3.7) with ESMTP id <B0017299554@saint.free.net.nz>;
Sat, 1 May 2004 16:02:06 +1200
Received: from johntina.nz (210-55-47-188.dialup.xtra.co.nz [210.55.47.188])
by smtp2.compass.net.nz (8.11.6/8.11.2) with ESMTP id i414HWc31492;
Sat, 1 May 2004 16:17:32 +1200
Date: Sat, 1 May 2004 16:17:32 +1200
From: johntina@free.net.nz
To: Free_mail@free.net.nz
Subject: Hi!
Importance: Normal
X-Priority: 3 (Normal)
Message-ID: <116f277b194c7c.861b1.qmail@free.net.nz>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="======ffbbbfeeebdcbddfedbbc"

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.

After that comes a long list of unreadable text.

Any help will be much appreciated, Antonia 		Antonia (730)
233513 2004-05-01 21:25:00 You can't stop them if they are addressed to you.
You should consider joining an ISP who will filter out all virus emails, most of the major ISP's do that now. 		Jim B (153)
233514 2004-05-01 21:51:00 Someone who has your email address in their address book will be infected with a virus, and this virus takes one address at random ad "spoofs" the email to look like it came from that address . It then sends the email to all the other addresses in the book . Thats why some look like you have sent them .

If your email is widely distributed, then finding who it is will be impossible .

One culprit in this matter is the forwarding or sending of emails with a huge number of addresses in the To: field, as every address then resides on every PC that receives it . A spammers dream .

Recently I started to receive some such emails, but they were to a little used email address, and this narrowed down the possibilities as to who would have that address . I found the infected machine, the owner was adamant that it was not them at fault, but the PC had a raft of viruses on it and no working Anti Virus software .

Unfortunately many people adopt the approach that they don't need Anti Virus software as they only use emails now and then . Unfortunately they become another "Typhoid Mary" and infect everyone else while in denial . 		godfather (25)
233515 2004-05-01 22:22:00 I think godfather sums it up quite nicely. These viruses are not going to go away, in fact they will probably get more numerous. The best thing you can do is use yourself and educate your friends/family on how to use the BCC function of Email Clients. If your email address is not passed around in the open so much and ends up in other peoples address books without your knowledge, this will help towards protecting your email address.

I have listed below some links for how to do protect yourself more:

Outlook Express - BCC (www.somewhere-in-time.net)

Eudora - BCC (www.somewhere-in-time.net)

Netscape - BCC (www.somewhere-in-time.net)

How to send an Email to Undisclosed Recipients (email.about.com)

How to forward an email (www.somewhere-in-time.net) 		Jen C (20)
233516 2004-05-01 23:55:00 Also posting your e-mail address on forums with the @ in it is also not going to help thing ;)
If you ask Bruce nicely bruce_buckman@idg.co.nz he might edit it out for you. 		stu120404 (268)
233517 2004-05-02 00:18:00 stu12p404

That is a vailid point, but I am wondering why you have in the next paragraph bruce's email address. ?:|

Oxie (Lyn) 		Oxie (1318)
233518 2004-05-02 02:27:00 Thank you godfather for the clear explanation and others for their tips as to how to avoid more trouble in the future.

I have decided to delete our present email address and create two new ones (one for personal contacts and one for others). Will also be very careful as to whom we give the new addresses to and will keep Jen's and Stu's suggestions in mind.

And yes, I will tell all contacts that present email address is no longer valid.

Thanks again, Antonia 		Antonia (730)
233519 2004-05-02 06:24:00 > That is a vailid point, but I am wondering why you
> have in the next paragraph bruce's email address.
> ?:|

Damn it I was going to say that. 		whiskeytangofoxtrot (438)
233520 2004-05-02 06:35:00 > And yes, I will tell all contacts that present email
> address is no longer valid.

So you'll tell all your contacts that your old address is no longer valid and that your new address is xxx@xxx.xx.xx - they'll add your new name to their address book and you'll start getting viruses again.

You are getting these because someone with your name in their address book is infected, thus most likely someone you know and trust with your e-mail address already.

The mail headers you posted tell me the virus is coming from someone that uses Xtra dial-up, so chances are it's someone you know with an @xtra.co.nz e-mail address. 		whiskeytangofoxtrot (438)
233521 2004-05-02 06:38:00 Probably doesn't matter much as Bruce has his email addy clearly visible in his profile and has posted it himself several times. Hope he has a seperate IDG business addy, I imagine he gets a truckload in his public one.

Cheers Murray P 		Murray P (44)
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