Viruses...Why?

[Larry Harp]

Just received another e-mail from my ISP, Cox, that they had intercepted another virus contamanted e-mail. I get 4 or 5 of these notices a week, sometimes 2 a day. I never recognize the name of the sender, so my question is why is this person is sending me a virus and how did they get my address? Is this not a form of terrorism? Shouldn't the federal government be doing something to stop these criminals?



Harpo

 

[BJ Laster]

Harpo,



My mom told me that she was told not to open those emails that they contained the virus and someone was using the name Cox Communications. I get a few a week too. I just delete them and haven't recieved any for the past couple of weeks

 

[Casey Campbell]

Most of it is coming from overseas, and the senders names and e-mail addresses are almost always bogus. Just not much our government can do about it, short of cutting the line to all incoming foreign internet traffic. And as crazy as it may seem, once your e-mail address gets out in the public domain, it becomes a commodity, bought and sold every day. Just try to pick a very unique e-mail address and keep it among you and your family and friends. Keep a throwaway address that you can change whenever you want for online postings and lists and such... When you start getting a bunch of junk, and you will, just delete the throwaway and start with a new one. Should cut down on alot of the trash you're getting.

 

[Michael Snow]

Because, the latest generation of viruses that use email have started spoofing the from address.



So, what you get is a virus emailed from user3, that shows as coming from user1 and going to user2. So, the person who sent you the virus has you and the other person in their address book, of on a cached webpage located on your machine.

 

[Larry Harp]

No, I believe the notifications are truly from Cox. There is a link that leads you to a web page on the subject. They do say they are going to quit sending the notifications but continue to block the viruses.



Harpo
http://usercenter.cox.net/rsuite/sd...sublevel=yes&frameurl=/sdckb/safety/virus.htm

 

[Michael Snow]

Okay, so it shows that YOU sent the virus to someone, when it actually came from a third party. So, the "you have a virus" message is sent to the sender or at least the person listed as being the sender.



Kinda like me yelling inflamatory statements in public after stating I was Harpo... who are they coming after? Harpo, of course

 

[Casey Campbell]

The notifications do come directly from your ISP, but the message from your ISP was triggered from an e-mail addressed to you (from someone that probably doesn't exist in the first place, or from someone that is infected and has your address in their address book) that contained a virus, but was stopped cold and deleted on Cox's e-mail server. Just keep in mind that your ISP's server can't block every virus that comes through, so treat everything you don't recognize, and some you do, with suspicion.

 

[BJ Laster]

WOW...just checked that out....i'll let my mom know too



BJ

 

[Larry Harp]

Mike, it's going to take me a while to figure out what you said.

My Norton Anti-Virus scans every e-mail that I send out as well as everyone that comes in. Addionally I have the first entry in my address book as : [email protected]. I am told that this will stop any worm or trojan horse from going down the list and sending viruses to all my contacts.



Harpo

 

[Michael Snow]

Somebody done fibbed to you about [email protected]. It'll simply fail DNS lookup and either generates an error or just accepts the message and queues it up until DNS lookup fails. Maybe back in the first generation of these type of email viruses, that might have done something, but not anymore.

 

[Steve Rizza]

I have been chasing a durn adware/spyware for days trying to delete it but am having no luck.My norton will pick it up but will not delete it.

It just takes me to a random webpage,mostly for on line casinos.

 

[Donald Fruge]

There is a patch that can be downloaded from Microsoft that will fix you up.



Not sure where or how to do it. The computer guru in my office did my office computer last week.



Wolf

 

[Casey Campbell]

Steve,



Install and run these two programs:



1) Adaware - http://www.lavasoft.de/



2) Spybot Search and Destroy - http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file_description/0,fid,22262,00.asp



They should be able to get rid of it for you.

 

[Steve Rizza]

Casey,

I tried the spybot and it would come up with three different files.When I would hit delete it would delete them.But when ever I would try to open any programs,nothing would open,I would have to go into the files for spybot and hit the back up button and restore everything.



After running the Ad-aware my norton will still pick up the same two adwares,but will not delete them.



They are CYDOOR and GATOR.



Time to break out the sledgehammer................

 

[Donald Fruge]

Go here and see if you can find some help.



This may not be the page that you need but its a start, surf around and see if you can find something pertaining to your situation.



Wolf
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/search.aspx?displaylang=en&categoryid=7

 

[Steve Rizza]

I do believe I finally got the dirty @#&%$#!!!



Had to start the cpu in safe mode,run a scan and manually find the file and delete it,then erase it from the registry.



I am totally suprised this thing still works now....LOL



Thanks for the help guys.

 

[Staci Matheis]

Heck, Steve..... That was only Rich trying to get you into another game of three card pisser!

 

[Steve Rizza]

At first I thought Rich did put some kind of re-direct ad.It would only do it soon after I start on the web.And with this being the first place that I go to,every time I would click somewhere it would take me to some random site.

After the initial re-direct it would quit doing it,by then I would be on a different site.



I kept thinking "NAH,Rich would never be like that other site".