Protect my self from viruses here

  • Thread starter Thread starter Paul Overway
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Paul Overway

You should munge your email address when posting to NGs....i.e.,
[email protected]

This will make your address less open to spam and viruses, which are usually
automated. Humans will usually know to remove the munged part of the
address....or they'll figure it out after their mail gets bounced.
 
That meems the virusese came from here
Click to expand...

No, it does not mean that.
Did someone had the same problem before?
Click to expand...

You and about ten thousand other people.

This is the SWEN virus. It searches an infected computer's hard disk
for EMail addresses and for newsgroup postings, and sends itself to
the addresses that it finds, with *other* misleading addresses as the
From address (so it's no use complaining to the apparent source of the
message).

It's infuriating, but Microsoft is of course NOT sending these
messages; and if they find out who started this virus (not an easy
task) they'll come down on him like a ton of bricks.
 
It's not WHERE you got the cold that counts, it's to prevent yourself from
catching it again. I found that if I use a fake eMail address for sending
mail via newsgroups I don't catch as many cold 8-)
 
Then i had to change my email address
to continue working. It worked fine until
i gave to the newsgroup account my new
email again.
Click to expand...

There's a joke here:

Patient: Doctor, it hurts when I do this.
Doctor: Don't do that.

For years, I had used an undisguised e-mail in my newsgroup posts. But, my
e-mail was in so many infected computers that my mail host was getting
multiple tens/hundreds of megabytes of "swen" and "automat" virus/worm
e-mails to me. Thus, as you did, I had to disable that e-mail. Unlike you,
it was clear to me what the source was, so I no longer post a valid e-mail,
not even a "munged" one... I suggest (1) you set your posts to use an
invalid e-mail, feel free to use the same one I did, I "borrowed" it from a
friend and (2) change your e-mail address once again and _never_ post it in
a newsgroup.

As long as it was only spammers harvesting addresses, the traffic was
controllable. Once the virus worm created "zombies" to spread itself
further, it was not controllable.

Larry Linson
Microsoft Access MVP
 
NOTE: A firewall will not protect you from viruses.

You need a virus software program such as Norton Antivirus or McAfee
Antivirus. Invest in the online protection or buy the program, otherwise you
will continue to get infected from some very nasty viruses.

In addtion to antivirus software you need to update from the Microsoft site;
NOT ANY EMAILS FROM MICROSOFT NOR ANY NOTIFICATIONS IN THIS NEWSGROUP, any
security patches for your particular OS (Win 98, Win 2K, XP etc).
 
Roy!

Roy Goldhammer said:
Hello there

After several formats of my computer as a result of viruses i've installed
firewall

After that my email address got 70 emails from users registered in here on
this newsgroup: mails that looks like microsoft messages. But all of them
had viruseses inside them and it blocked others to send emails to me as a
result of over quota.

Then i had to change my email address to continue working

It worked fine until i gave to the newsgroup account my new email again.

That meems the virusese came from here

Did someone had the same problem before?
Click to expand...

I am no way close to an expert with virus contorl, and there are many
variations of e-mail munges to be had, but, the one I now
use was suggested by an alt.comp.anti-virus ng expert. That is, use the
first part of your normal e-mail then @nospam.invalid for all my newsgroup
e-mail addresses and replay addresses for all the various ng's I visit.

Along with this, I set my OE6 Message Rules to filter out the spam and such
to be deleted from the server, which means they never make it to my Inbox.
They also suggested that I set my OE Tools | Options | Send settings to Mail
Sending format - Plain Text and News Sending format to Plain Text.

While this might not work for everyone...depending on how you set your
Message Rules, all I can say is, it has worked for me. After doing this, I
have had very little problem with either spam or the Swen stuff. I have only
gotten 3-4 spams and NO Swen messages in the last 4 days. I also use AVG6.0
as my AV.

HTH

Best regards,
Jan :)
 
First, Please fix the date on your calendar.

No doubt you will be getting more spam and viruses because you are posting a
valid email address. I have been using a fake email address for the last 6
or 7 years and I still get a few because of web bot spiders mining my
websites. I must use the server to control those. The last big virus (SoBig)
that circulated caused my server to get swamped with as many as 50 bogus
emails a minute. I redirected that address and no longer can use it.

There are 2 things you can do:

1. Never publicly post your email address.
2. Never answer spam, even to ask that you be removed.
--
Arvin Meyer, MCP, MVP
Microsoft Access
Free Access downloads:
http://www.datastrat.com
http://www.mvps.org/access
 
Hello there

After several formats of my computer as a result of viruses i've installed
firewall

After that my email address got 70 emails from users registered in here on
this newsgroup: mails that looks like microsoft messages. But all of them
had viruseses inside them and it blocked others to send emails to me as a
result of over quota.

Then i had to change my email address to continue working

It worked fine until i gave to the newsgroup account my new email again.

That meems the virusese came from here

Did someone had the same problem before?
 
One last point.

My ISP has put filters on their server so I have stopped getting those mails
from "Microsoft".

Try asking your ISP.

--
Jonathan Blitz
AnyKey Limited
Israel

"When things seem bad
Don't worry and shout
Just count up the times
Things have worked themselves out."
 
I've received hundreds (thousands?) of these unwanted
emails, as I've used my real email address. The problem I
have is I like the email address I have!

*Has an idea* I think I'll find the email address of
someone I love very very much and use that here *evil
grin.*

David
 
I've received hundreds (thousands?) of these unwanted
emails, as I've used my real email address.
The problem I
have is I like the email address I have!
Ditto!

*Has an idea* I think I'll find the email address of
someone I love very very much and use that here *evil
grin.*
Click to expand...

Verrry evil - and thank you for suggesting it! <G>
 
It had to have come from here. I started receiving them
the same day I posted to this website (Never receiver them
before). If there is any justice in the universe, a
hacker's hell will be that they have to read EVERY peice
of spam they have ever created. That should keep them
busy for all of eternity.
Click to expand...

It didn't "come from here", and this isn't a website.

You may be *using* a website to connect to this Usenet Newsgroup, but
the website isn't the newsgroup, it's just a window onto it. You can
connect to the newsgroup using Outlook Express, or Agent, or any
number of other tools.

And the emails are coming from computers infected with the SWEN virus,
which harvests EMail addresses from Usenet newsgroups and sends these
fake "patch" messages. The website and the newsgroup are unwilling
victims of the virus code, not the source of the messages!
 
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