Friends,
Thirty people sent in responses, which I believe is a new
record number of responses to any query. Interesting. Most
of these have experienced similar spam, and pointed out that
the villain is the 'klez worm'. Klez attaches itself to a
system, and then sends out spurious messages giving a 'From
address from the local address book. All very Microsoft
Outlook specific, I believe. Macs can't get infected, but
they can suffer receiving the spurious messages.
I'm using Eudora, which allows me to specify "Skip messages
over 40K". For longer messages, it gives me the first
several lines, and I can press a button to get the rest if I
want it. Since I started doing that, spam has no longer
been a bother. I imagine there is similar software for the
PC, instead of Outlook.
Several people said they aren't experiencing any problems.
Several said that they always delete any attachments, unless
from very trusted sources and the accompanying message
appears to be legitimate. Others have received "REQUEST FOR
URGENT BUSINESS ASSISTANCE", which is actually a scam rather
than spam.
Some people are using spam-filter services. These services
only accept mail from addresses you have authorized, or addresses
which check out as being real addresses. It's a workable solution
if you have a serious problem with spam, but it forces new
correspondents to go through a response protocol the first
time they send you mail.
Dion Giles suggested: "The nonsense messages with
attachments may be the Klez or Sircam or Magister virus.
Need to sweep with current Norton or Grisoft or Vet or
F-Prot. The attachments should not on any account be
opened."
Scott Bowling offered:
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Some additional info:
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,52055,00.html
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,52174,00.html
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/56/25542.html
From the anti-virus folks:
http://www.antivirus.com/vinfo/virusencyclo/default5.asp?VName=WORM_KLEZ.H
http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/•••@••.•••
You can find a lot of info by searching for the klez worm (virus), as
this thing is quite nasty and widespread.
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bye for now,
rkm
http://cyberjournal.org
