EMAIL VIRUS - PLEASE READ

[SaintGeorge]

Last night I discovered a virus in an email attachment sent alongside the Courtney Cox pictures. Luckily I didn't open the attachment so my machine wasn't directly infected. However this morning I have received another 3 emails, all again containing the virus.

The virus (worm) in question is W32.Netsky.Z@mm. It gets around by scanning email address books and then sending itself on. It is very clever at disguising the incoming address to look like an innocent contact.

I have noticed that so far all of the attachments have been 31K in size with varying titles. Yahoo is obviously recognising them as a problem since they have all been dumped straight to my bulk mail folder despite allegedly coming from individual known contacts. The Norton antivirus scan done automatically by Yahoo has stopped anything from downloading.

As ever be cautious opening email attachments and always check with the sender first that it is a genuine attachment that they have sent you.

I have scanned my machine and it appears clean but as an extra precaution, please note that I will never use my antlxstew @ yahoo address to send unsolicited mail, only to reply directly to mails received. So if you received anything alleging to be from that address ? take care.

I have got a virus from an email, do you know how i get rid of it? Thankyou for all the info too

StG, have they all come from my address or are you getting them from elsewhere too? (getting paranoid now )

Your antlx address isn't even in the address book of the "my surnameAOL" address that was supposed to have sent it last night...although the my surnameAOL address is in the address book of the other address which I did send the christening pics from...IYSWIM...is this relevant? (I don't understand viruses, can you tell?) (or anything else much!)

I have a 00000 listing at the top of my address books, I was told ages ago that this foiled viruses, is this true?

janh - no, although it does foil some.

the only thing that foils viruses is a regularly updated copy of Norton or Mcaffee anti-virus.

Thanks, SP - I'll leave it in then!

I ran Norton after StG told me she'd had this virus last night and it didn't find anything so presumably it didn't come from me but from someone else's address book which my address is in? Is that right?

could be, Jan.

Sorry Jan, had to go out so only just seen your messages. Don?t get paranoid please, I suspect the source is those pictures so the worm could be sitting in anybody?s address book.

I honestly don't know where it has come from - one of the original mails has your name on but that doesn't mean a thing. These worms are sneaky little sods and hide behind other addresses. Just out of interest, do you have an address in yours that is something to do with brighton & hove local government, because I got a mail from them this morning too?

No harm done, just wanted other people to be aware so they could watch out for it.

fairyfly ? if you know the name of the virus try Googling it. Normally that will bring up info on what damage is possible and how to remove/prevent.

... one thing worth trying is moving to a Mac. For all intents and purposes virus free...

Yep, great things Macs if you have money to spend.

I don't, so I will be sticking with my virus free PC.

sg?/ how do you find out where the worms are? ie your saying they are attached to the email

Yes - I got an email I was expecting with an attachment, which I opened and was clean. At the same time I received a 2nd mail from the same person, also with an attachment so I opened it without thinking. When I tried to open the attachment, the Yahoo virus scanner refused and said it contained the worm.

ooh nasty little critters thanks

Slightly apart from the email warning, I've had a couple of virus attacks (one worm, one trojan) upon opening links on MN recently.....

Keep the virus protection up to date all! (Dread to think what state my old pc was in! McAffee security centre seems to be doing a good job on this one. )

Through mumsnet?

Seems so Willow, shortly after I've opened each link, a virus warning has popped up to say that McAffee has found and eradicated it.

It'd be helpful to have somewhere specific to post such things maybe?

Was it a Dell link by any chance? My computer went mental for about ten minutes after clicking through - but have scanned without a handful of programmes that have all found nothing.

No, didn't try that one. One was of babies in utero, in the news section. Another was on chat recently, but TBH I can't even remember what, sorry!

Hi St George - last time I checked everything cost money. Yes equivalent processing power PCs may be cheaper than Macs but they do come at different price points and the Mac Mini starts at £499 which isn't too bad, IMHO compared to a PC. You can buy / build cheaper PCs because the architecture is open, so there is more competition in the required components.

Just to clarify regarding the links leading to virii / spyware... it is not the fact that the links are from MN that are the problem, but that the destination Website either has helpfully embedded scripts which may pop up annoying banners / pages or trigger spyware installations or that your Web browser has previously been infected with some piece of malware than delights in redirecting your Web surfing / pointing you at a malware site on occasion / blocking certain URLs / resetting your home page etc.

Make sure your Windows install has the latest and greatest service packs and security fixes, that you are running the latest version of the browser and that you regularly update your virus and spyware signature programs and run scans at night / weekend etc. and you will be fine.

HTH

Thanks for clarifying Hub2Dee, I hadn't meant to insinuate it's MN's fault!

(McAffee do a Fort Knox of a pop up blocker )

THere is a brillaint programme to get rid of worms and trojans - its free to download and is called McAfee Avert Stinger

H2D - I know everything costs money. I won't be getting a new Mac or a new PC when this one dies. I haven't got any money. End of story.

Hi St. G... wasn't trying to wind you up, esp. if there's no money for a new puter if needed. We both help out with computer advice etc. on here, so we're really on the same side... it's just Macs often get bashed on price, and I don't think that's so true, so I'll always try and (quietly) state my point.

If you want cheap PCs, and you can build boxes / install OSes no prob, do you know all about the Eden mini-ITX / Shuttle stuff ?

It's a single board computer, often fanless, very small motherboard 17cm square, totally integrated (sound / graphics / ethernet / firewire) and tend to be v. well priced. Excellent site with info and online shop here .

I run one as a headless / net boot appliance in a brown cardboard box ! Must have cost me less than £100 but no hard-drive / CD / DVD needed in my situation.

You won't get the incredible 3+ GHz processing speeds in this form factor, but these mobos are more than fine for Word / E-mail / Surfing type stuff.

i got this one but have mcaffe on my machine which stopped it, didn't reconginse the sender.

find and remove tool
i didnt have it....