Re: Your Product

[clarkcd]

That's the title of an email I received today from [email protected] with the text See the attached file for details. and it contained a file called your product.pif.

I haven't sent any emails to Rich about his product so I'm guessing either he or someone with both our addresses recently got infected with a virus.

Information about this virus can be found here:

http://kb.trendmicro.com/solutions/solutionDetail.asp?solutionId=18886

[WampaX]

Thanks for the warning, Pete.

[The Giant]

Actually, I've been getting similar emails but they've been dumped in my Junk folder. According to the link you provided, though, it only functions on Windows machines. I'm exclusively Macintosh, so I would wager that someone else who has my address in their book is infected.

Plus, I'm far too lazy to enter people into the Address Book in the first place. :P

[RawBearNYC]

FYI, just because a message says it's from Rich doesn't mean it is. The "From" header in an e-mail message can be forged (in fact, a majority of the time, it is, to an extent). Think of it like snail mail. Anyone can write anything as a return address on an Envelope and send it. There's no verification of this information. Only the postmark gives us a clue as to where something originates.

[clarkcd]

That's why I had mentioned this.


either he or someone with both our addresses recently got infected with a virus.


Generally the virus has to get the address from somewhere and that is usually from an address book. So if someone has both Rich and myself in his/her address book it took his address for the from line and mine for the to line.

[clarkcd]

I've gotten 2 virus emails today "from" [email protected]. They're probably not from bogotter but I thought I'd post here just in case.

[Bogotter]

Whoa...that's my email address. Pretty scary actually. I'll run a virus scan. Thanks for the heads up!

[Bogotter]

I downloaded the tool for removing the worm netsky.d and it was not found on my computer. I'll do a complete scan today.

[RawBearNYC]

Netsky doesn't usually put your name on e-mails, but generates random From's and To's from the addresses it finds on the infected system. So, statistically speaking, Netsky virus emails are probably NOT from the machine owned by the person in the FROM line, tho, it is possible.

[Bogotter]

Yeah I think that's what is happening. My PC was clean of viruses.

Thanks for the info!

[clarkcd]

I just post the info here because this is the only place that both Bogotter and myself have in common. That way whoever does have the virus will hopefully see it and do a virus scan to clean it up.

The same is true of the original post. I didn't think Giant had the virus but someone who has both Giants email and my own does. This is the logical place to let everyone know in hopes that the person who does have the virus gets it cleaned up.