YET ANOTHER VIRUS ALERT!

Ken_8

and I lost the entire day dealing with a virus that somehow breached Verizon, my router, my firewall, Norton (updated twice a week - at least) and XP.

The virus was not in an attachment (even I know better than to open an attachment without taking security measures). It was embedded in the email text itself!

Reliable source? Just my brother-in-law for the past 40+ years!

The first thing it did was disable Norton. It also disabled my ability to even get to Norton's website to self examine the corruption of my files.

After trying all the tricks I ever heard of, I found the beast was in fact the W32.Beagle.AG@mm virus. Actually it appeared to be a variant thereof.

So forget about not opening attachments as some preventitive measure. Yesterday Norton added the filter to snag this one. But before even opening ANY e-mail, be cautious. The M.O. of this thing seems to be a very minor distortion of a known to be good source, e.g., "HeatingHlep.net" We all know it is HeatingHelp.com, not .net. I also found three or four others similarly "off." Like the server appendage being incorrect, e.g., johnsmith@AOL.com - and me knowing John does not use an AOL account. He uses earthlink.net

Be very wary. It cost me a day and a half of my life not to be.

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Constantin

Let me guess...

...do you use MS Outlook?

Ken_8

NO!

I think most of us know better. Might as well leave the key in the ignition and the motor running while parking in Fort Apache (the Bronx).



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jackchips_2

Believe it

or not Con, but most of us do not have your's or Ken's ability to master the world of computers. We're kind of stuck with Hotmail or Outlook.

When I first started with DSL we had Netscape, whatever that is, and that crashed big time and took my whole computer with it.

Sorry for your troubles Ken and thanks for the heads up. I have become very cautious when opening mail and that will be cranked up a level now.

Jack

Constantin

Weird

I looked up the AG beagle virus info at Symantec, they seem to claim that it only arrives as an attachment. If you didn't click on it, perhaps your e-mail client auto-executed the file? Does someone else use your CPU occasionally? Curious.

Constantin

Consider Mozilla

It's a fast, full-featured browser with an e-mail client built-in. If you prefer your browser and e-mail to be separate applications, consider Firefox (very fast browser) and Thunderbird (full-featured e-mail client). All three are free and can be downloaded from the Mozilla.org web-site.

None of the above options are that hard to set up, particularly when you compare the required effort to risk of losing your whole system to yet another malware, spyware, or virus/worm/whatever. Granted, there is a possibility that virii/malware/etc. will be written in the future to take advantage of open-source applications as well, however they seem to be safe for now.

Furthermore, the open-source community has had a much better track record of acknowledging and fixing security issues than MS, Apple, or any other closed-source vendor.

Having said that, nothing will protect you from an attachment once it has been opened if you're using MS Windows. Then, the application can no longer control what's going on. This is why I use an Apple Macintosh as my main computer, it's OS is far more secure IMHO than MS windows. However, many heating-related programs only run on Windows, so the professionals are pretty much "stuck" with trying to harden Windows as much as possible.

Anyway, try Mozilla and some other browsers and/or e-mail clients. Many excellent, free options exist that are exceedlingly good. If you don't feel confident doing it yourself, you can always hire someone else to do it... no shame in it at all. The real tragedy in all this is how the wonderful tool that e-mail can be has been abused so badly.

Bud_14

I use outlook express and never have a problem, I also use N.A.V. and recieve the auto updates. I have what used to be high speed, cable. Hooked into a router, brakes off to the kids computer, my wifes computer, while we have had many problems with their computer..it has never breeched mine. Live updates are a blessing. There is a sucurity setting in out look express..go to tools, then to options and then to security..make sure that the "Do Not allow attachments to be saved or opened that could potentally be a virus...This also means most of the images that are sent to you can not be viewed, if you know of the sender and that it is true to be the correct sender, you must go in and turn the security off to open or view the image. The Virus can be imbedded in the image or hideden in the attachment that the image is attached to...scary stuff.
Be safe and back up your computer often, I have been backing mine up weekly and have back up to all important changes daily.

As for the email anybody@heatinghelp. I have them flying all over the world with anynames@thesheetmetalshop., it is a nuicence, but nothing anyone can do about it. Before you open the mail, right click on the email address and then click on the properties, it is in the properties that you can actually see the orignial sender...most of which are changed constantly and no way (that we can afford to do) find and do anything about.

The only Email address that is out there for TheSheetMetalShop.Com is BUD@ and maybe JOHN@, anything else is a fake and should not be opened.

Bud

Ken_8

A good personal friend who

happens to be the IT Security wizard at ATT states there are hundreds of variations of almost all viruses, worms, et al. Norton has a general applications warning and "fix" team. They classify all variations with the same archtecture as a single attack - despite the nuances a small time hacker may add or alter to "tweak" the root mal-ware to something more "personal."

And no. I am the sole operator of my computer.

Recent advances in auto-opening mal-ware (viruses that do not need the attachment to open to infect) have bantied about for a year now. I read about them a lot in my computer stuff bible, "PC Magazine." I don't understand half the stuff they write about, but the virus via unopened attachments has been broadcast as the latest nuance of delivery methods. I fear stuff has to become really widespread however, before these guys waste paper on writing about it.



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