Fun With Email (but not if you're naive)

by COMF 7 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  COMF

  In the past few days I've received three emails from sources I don't know that had .bat and .exe files attached along with a picture. For you who don't know, these files are executable; that means, they are programs that do things. They are the stuff viruses are made of.

  How to handle this: before you open an email, look to see if it has attachments. Check who sent it to you. Do you know them? If not, delete it. If yes, then it's up to you. Does it look suspicious (odd subject, bad grammatical structure, nonsensical statements or names)? Did the person let you know they were sending you something?

  Best bet is never to open any attachment if you didn't know in advance that it was coming. Now, in the case of the .bat and .exe files, I have to explicitly open them before they can do their dirty work. They haven't contaminated my computer with a virus just by arriving in my email. But if I double-click them or open them, they will. Just delete; don't mess with it. Curiosity killed the computer, too.

  Particulars of the three I received:

  From	Subject	Attachments
  help	MARGINWIDTH	Wih.bat, shot_elegance_small[1].jpg
  service	Scrolling	Src.exe, puzdeppop1[1].htm
  inet	Obj.style.visibility	href.exe, cvr-answeredprayers-09-26[1].jpg
• 

  Quotes

  To see the actual sender of the email, check the "X-Apparently-From" field in the email headers (note that most email programs hide these headers).

  To view headers in Outlook Express: File --> Properties --> Details tab

  To view headers in Outlook 2002: View --> Options --> look in the Internet Headers section.

  I am still receiving several of these infected emails per day (see my thread at http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/forum/thread.aspx?id=35755&site=3).

  I sent a nice email to [email protected] advising them they had a problem, but I received a terse and indignant "no way, couldn't be me, I use anti-virus software" response.

  *SIGH*
• 

  wednesday

  apparently there are some kind of nasy things out there that can just be in the e-mail itself. My friend apparently sent me an e-mail. it had an off title, but b/c i knew the sender-i opened it. It was a paragraph that came form a book , but was not addressed to me. I called my friend and alerted him-he had a virus- and it had gotten ramdom names off his computer and sent them all an e-mail. My computer did not warn me-but some of the people it sent this file to did have alert messages. Toataly fowed up his machine b/c it had been there for a while before he knew it.
• 

  Trauma_Hound

  Actually the field you want to look at is the Recieved: Field this will show the ip address of the person that sent it. The other fields can be spoofed, then you want to send an e-mail to the [email protected] of that IP address. You can get the real host name of the ip address, by dropping to a command prompt and typing 'nslookup THEIPADDRESS'. Because the hostname of the IP address can also be spoofed. So it's always good to do a nslookup on it to get the real hostname. Thusly the reason you probibly got a terse response, it probibly wasn't him.

  Edited by - Trauma_Hound on 6 December 2002 3:10:25
• 

  Simon

  Never open any attachment (or at least not EXE's) even if it is from someone you know.

  Chances are, it only appears to come form them and is sent by a careless 3rd party who doesn' thave virus protection or is doing it intentionally.

  If someone is going to send something then they should contact you first to say that they are going to.
• 

  rebel

  This is all very tricky. I get about 100 emails a day - mostly work-related. I work from home. I often get attachments. If I have to phone everyone before opening them to check them, It would take ages. Surely, as long as you have up-to-date virus protection, that should keep you safe, shouldn't it? Also, if you have a firewall, doesn't that give you a certain amount of protection?
• 

  COMF

  My post was directed at newbies, folks. Note the title.

  Newbies have no use for IP addresses. What they would be interested in, is what appears in the "from" field of their email when it comes in. So that's what I put up.

  Yes, if you have adequate up-to-date virus protection, theoretically you're covered, especially if you don't open executable attached files. But many newbies don't have adequate up-to-date virus protection. Again--reread the title.
• 

  Trauma_Hound

  Newbies have no use for IP addresses. What they would be interested in, is what appears in the "from" field of their email when it comes in. So that's what I put up.

  Yes, if you have adequate up-to-date virus protection, theoretically you're covered, especially if you don't open executable attached files. But many newbies don't have adequate up-to-date virus protection. Again--reread the title.

  Again, on virus related e-mails, the from fields are almost never accurate, and you will just be harrasing some poor individual by e-mailing them, that has nothing to with this virus. There is always a patient Zero, anotherwards, if the virus is new, and has never been put in the virus databases, then you may become the first person to start to spread it, no matter if you have virus software or not. If you absolutely need to get attachements, then tell your friends/workers to put them in a zip file, that way you can tell when they are ligit, and not a virus going off, and e-mailing itself to all their friends.