Bogus Microsoft E-Mails

  • Thread starter Thread starter Deb M.
  • Start date Start date
D

Deb M.

I'm not sure if this is the appropriate forum for my
concern. If not, I would appreciate a point in the right
direction....

For reasons unknown to me, I have received over
200 "fake" e-mails claiming to be from Microsoft over the
last 3-4 days. They have a variety of sender addresses
such as Security Division
[[email protected]], Program Security
Section [[email protected]], MS Corporation
Program Security Department
[[email protected]] and all say they
are "Critical Updates", "Latest Microsoft Upgrade" and
the like. Most are caught by my spam filter and dumped
in my junk folder but as fast as I block them, it seems,
the faster new ones arrive. Additionally, most of them
have no message in the body section but instead say
the "message has been blocked and cannot be retrieved"
(which may be a function of my ISP due to their recent
implementation of having to use secure authorization to
get into their mail server.)

Is Microsoft aware of this bogus activity and is there a
way I can report this to Microsoft? It's starting to
drive me crazy as it appears to be getting worse and both
my inbox and junk folder are inundated every day on a
regular basis with this garbage.

Thanks for any help.
 
This is the SWEN virus. It isn't from Microsoft. They're aware of it, but
there isn't much anyone can do as long as there are unpatched/unprotected
computers out there. MS does not send out patches via email. Make sure your
AV software is up to date, and delete the messages.

Note that if you post your email address in usenet, or use a valid email
address in your news account, you are going to get spam, and now, SWEN. Once
your address is out there, it's out there.
 
Wonderful! I see I'm not the only one with this
problem. Too bad Microsoft's own forums don't have some
protection from this kind of crap. Thanks for the reply,
I'll just keep hitting the delete button, eventually
it'll wear itself out.
-----Original Message-----
This is the SWEN virus. It isn't from Microsoft. They're aware of it, but
there isn't much anyone can do as long as there are unpatched/unprotected
computers out there. MS does not send out patches via email. Make sure your
AV software is up to date, and delete the messages.

Note that if you post your email address in usenet, or use a valid email
address in your news account, you are going to get spam, and now, SWEN. Once
your address is out there, it's out there.
I'm not sure if this is the appropriate forum for my
concern. If not, I would appreciate a point in the right
direction....

For reasons unknown to me, I have received over
200 "fake" e-mails claiming to be from Microsoft over the
last 3-4 days. They have a variety of sender addresses
such as Security Division
[[email protected]], Program Security
Section [[email protected]], MS Corporation
Program Security Department
[[email protected]] and all say they
are "Critical Updates", "Latest Microsoft Upgrade" and
the like. Most are caught by my spam filter and dumped
in my junk folder but as fast as I block them, it seems,
the faster new ones arrive. Additionally, most of them
have no message in the body section but instead say
the "message has been blocked and cannot be retrieved"
(which may be a function of my ISP due to their recent
implementation of having to use secure authorization to
get into their mail server.)

Is Microsoft aware of this bogus activity and is there a
way I can report this to Microsoft? It's starting to
drive me crazy as it appears to be getting worse and both
my inbox and junk folder are inundated every day on a
regular basis with this garbage.

Thanks for any help.
Click to expand...


.
Click to expand...
 
Guess using (e-mail address removed) doesn't
help either, ey? The only place I post things is on a
Microsoft newsgroup...and I don't use my own e-mail
address for precisely the problems I'm now having.

-----Original Message-----
This is the SWEN virus. It isn't from Microsoft. They're aware of it, but
there isn't much anyone can do as long as there are unpatched/unprotected
computers out there. MS does not send out patches via email. Make sure your
AV software is up to date, and delete the messages.

Note that if you post your email address in usenet, or use a valid email
address in your news account, you are going to get spam, and now, SWEN. Once
your address is out there, it's out there.
I'm not sure if this is the appropriate forum for my
concern. If not, I would appreciate a point in the right
direction....

For reasons unknown to me, I have received over
200 "fake" e-mails claiming to be from Microsoft over the
last 3-4 days. They have a variety of sender addresses
such as Security Division
[[email protected]], Program Security
Section [[email protected]], MS Corporation
Program Security Department
[[email protected]] and all say they
are "Critical Updates", "Latest Microsoft Upgrade" and
the like. Most are caught by my spam filter and dumped
in my junk folder but as fast as I block them, it seems,
the faster new ones arrive. Additionally, most of them
have no message in the body section but instead say
the "message has been blocked and cannot be retrieved"
(which may be a function of my ISP due to their recent
implementation of having to use secure authorization to
get into their mail server.)

Is Microsoft aware of this bogus activity and is there a
way I can report this to Microsoft? It's starting to
drive me crazy as it appears to be getting worse and both
my inbox and junk folder are inundated every day on a
regular basis with this garbage.

Thanks for any help.
Click to expand...


.
Click to expand...
 
It has nothing to do with MS - it's just usenet. ;-)
Wonderful! I see I'm not the only one with this
problem. Too bad Microsoft's own forums don't have some
protection from this kind of crap. Thanks for the reply,
I'll just keep hitting the delete button, eventually
it'll wear itself out.
-----Original Message-----
This is the SWEN virus. It isn't from Microsoft. They're aware of
it, but there isn't much anyone can do as long as there are
unpatched/unprotected computers out there. MS does not send out
patches via email. Make sure your AV software is up to date, and
delete the messages.

Note that if you post your email address in usenet, or use a valid
email address in your news account, you are going to get spam, and
now, SWEN. Once your address is out there, it's out there.
I'm not sure if this is the appropriate forum for my
concern. If not, I would appreciate a point in the right
direction....

For reasons unknown to me, I have received over
200 "fake" e-mails claiming to be from Microsoft over the
last 3-4 days. They have a variety of sender addresses
such as Security Division
[[email protected]], Program Security
Section [[email protected]], MS Corporation
Program Security Department
[[email protected]] and all say they
are "Critical Updates", "Latest Microsoft Upgrade" and
the like. Most are caught by my spam filter and dumped
in my junk folder but as fast as I block them, it seems,
the faster new ones arrive. Additionally, most of them
have no message in the body section but instead say
the "message has been blocked and cannot be retrieved"
(which may be a function of my ISP due to their recent
implementation of having to use secure authorization to
get into their mail server.)

Is Microsoft aware of this bogus activity and is there a
way I can report this to Microsoft? It's starting to
drive me crazy as it appears to be getting worse and both
my inbox and junk folder are inundated every day on a
regular basis with this garbage.

Thanks for any help.
Click to expand...


.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
It could have come from anywhere your actual e-mail address might be out
there in cyberspace...if you've ever sent a message to a friend and they
forwarded your message to someone else without cutting out your e-mail
address first, it could have eventually fallen into the wrong hands. If
you're not using your real e-mail address on the forums, that's just one
less place they can get it from (most people don't know not to use their
real e-mail address on usenet, which is why that
(e-mail address removed) was put into place for the Web Microsoft
newsgroup interface).

--
Jocelyn Fiorello
MVP - Outlook

*** Replies sent to my e-mail address will probably not be answered --
please reply only to the newsgroup to preserve the message thread. ***


In
Deb said:
Guess using (e-mail address removed) doesn't
help either, ey? The only place I post things is on a
Microsoft newsgroup...and I don't use my own e-mail
address for precisely the problems I'm now having.

-----Original Message-----
This is the SWEN virus. It isn't from Microsoft. They're aware of
it, but there isn't much anyone can do as long as there are
unpatched/unprotected computers out there. MS does not send out
patches via email. Make sure your AV software is up to date, and
delete the messages.

Note that if you post your email address in usenet, or use a valid
email address in your news account, you are going to get spam, and
now, SWEN. Once your address is out there, it's out there.
I'm not sure if this is the appropriate forum for my
concern. If not, I would appreciate a point in the right
direction....

For reasons unknown to me, I have received over
200 "fake" e-mails claiming to be from Microsoft over the
last 3-4 days. They have a variety of sender addresses
such as Security Division
[[email protected]], Program Security
Section [[email protected]], MS Corporation
Program Security Department
[[email protected]] and all say they
are "Critical Updates", "Latest Microsoft Upgrade" and
the like. Most are caught by my spam filter and dumped
in my junk folder but as fast as I block them, it seems,
the faster new ones arrive. Additionally, most of them
have no message in the body section but instead say
the "message has been blocked and cannot be retrieved"
(which may be a function of my ISP due to their recent
implementation of having to use secure authorization to
get into their mail server.)

Is Microsoft aware of this bogus activity and is there a
way I can report this to Microsoft? It's starting to
drive me crazy as it appears to be getting worse and both
my inbox and junk folder are inundated every day on a
regular basis with this garbage.

Thanks for any help.
Click to expand...


.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Thanks for additional information. It makes a little
more sense now! Does anyone know how long this might
last?? I lost count of how many of these I've received
but they just keep coming! And I keep deleting! I guess
I've been lucky so far that this hasn't happened before.
I thought I had protected myself from something like this
as much as possible for anyone. I keep my system updated
with updates, patches, fixes on a very regular basis. I
use Norton which is also always as up-to-date as
possible. I'm surprised Norton didn't catch it in the
beginning but, for some reason, it didn't, at least not
by the W32.Swen.A@mm file name. I just did another full
Norton scan using "swen" as the search word and came up
with a surprising number of files that do not contain
the "swen" phrase (such as bda.inf, hivesys.inf,
machine.inf, directx.log AND swenum.sys among others).
Are any of these the culprit? Would running Symantec's
removal tool for this W32.Swen.A@mm be of any help? Do
these things eventually wear themselves out? I've always
thought that people who instigate these types of things
could put their time to better use doing something
worthwhile! Thanks again.

-----Original Message-----
It has nothing to do with MS - it's just usenet. ;-)
Wonderful! I see I'm not the only one with this
problem. Too bad Microsoft's own forums don't have some
protection from this kind of crap. Thanks for the reply,
I'll just keep hitting the delete button, eventually
it'll wear itself out.
-----Original Message-----
This is the SWEN virus. It isn't from Microsoft. They're aware of
it, but there isn't much anyone can do as long as there are
unpatched/unprotected computers out there. MS does not send out
patches via email. Make sure your AV software is up to date, and
delete the messages.

Note that if you post your email address in usenet, or use a valid
email address in your news account, you are going to get spam, and
now, SWEN. Once your address is out there, it's out there.

Deb M. wrote:
I'm not sure if this is the appropriate forum for my
concern. If not, I would appreciate a point in the right
direction....

For reasons unknown to me, I have received over
200 "fake" e-mails claiming to be from Microsoft over the
last 3-4 days. They have a variety of sender addresses
such as Security Division
[[email protected]], Program Security
Section [[email protected]], MS Corporation
Program Security Department
[[email protected]] and all say they
are "Critical Updates", "Latest Microsoft Upgrade" and
the like. Most are caught by my spam filter and dumped
in my junk folder but as fast as I block them, it seems,
the faster new ones arrive. Additionally, most of them
have no message in the body section but instead say
the "message has been blocked and cannot be retrieved"
(which may be a function of my ISP due to their recent
implementation of having to use secure authorization to
get into their mail server.)

Is Microsoft aware of this bogus activity and is there a
way I can report this to Microsoft? It's starting to
drive me crazy as it appears to be getting worse and both
my inbox and junk folder are inundated every day on a
regular basis with this garbage.

Thanks for any help.


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