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The virus is sent under a variety of names which typically come with attachments making identification difficult.
He advised anyone who thinks they might have a message with the virus not to open it but also not to delete it as this activates it and sends the message to any email address it can find on the computer.
The articles don't give it a name... It's reported it comes in a zipped file, and new Norton AV definition files, dated today, include protection for a zipped virus.
More info here at Symantec. [securityresponse.symantec.com...]
It exploits an Iframe vulnerability to activate the virus when you open the email itself - there's info and a link to a patch for the vulnerability at Symantec.
I would doubt, however, that it activates when deleting the email - assuming you mean right clicking in the inbox window and deleting. The same was said of Badtrans & its variants (which had the similar 'open email to auto-activate' problem) - wasn't true then either.
Often they do not realise that the preview pane actually is all the virus needs to be set off.
I've just gone round the office and checked machines... two out of ten have preview panes open AGAIN.
Not surprisingly, one of these people is also the same person who let a virus in six months ago. Three years of educating this @hole and he's still doing it.
At this stage I'm thoroughly steamed and ready to throttle him... except he's the bloody owner. :(
It would be a great add on for MS to have an option where you can disallow preview panes in all folders across an entire network or password protect that option. I know one person who had the preview pane turned off in the inbox but not in the all the other folders!
It does not open the attachment but on some of these new viruses that is not needed, you only need to open the email which is basically what preview pane does.
>>At this stage I'm thoroughly steamed and ready to throttle him... except he's the bloody owner.lol - the owner - always a problem!
Hehehe... I still get a giggle when I remember my boss's machine catching a virus and sending me an attachment titled "Me_Nude.pif"
I love having a Mac. I must say I am utterly stunned by the number of Windows viruses I receive through email every week. Amazes me how many people out there have not learned.
Eudora 5.2 is really powerful, converts EVERYTHING from outlook,
and also check out spamnix plugin for like 95%+ spam removal.
So how difficult is it to install, set up and to change from Outlook? I have NT, will that cause any additional difficulties? Will my McAfee virusscan still work? Will I still need it? Are there any problems with using Zone Alarm with it?
Another thing I have never understood about email security -even if I switch to Eudora, or Opera mail or anything non-Outlook, I still have a windows OS. I don't understand why viruses can't still infect my computer. Ones that just send out copies of themselves through Outlook, sure, but what about ones that try to delete files, etc.? Are there still some that need to be watched out for even when not using Outlook?
There are still lots of other ways to infect a computer, so it pays to be vigilant - use Zone Alarm, a good anti-virus program, etc. But although I use Outlook, I would have to agree that running Eudora with HTML disabled will significantly reduce your chance of being infected with certain (very common) viruses.
By the way - Outlook Express can also be set to ignore HTML.
Richard Lowe
Personally, desktop firewall and anti-virus programs is mostly hype. I might see some value in detecting trojans, but mostly these programs make your computer slow, unstable, and unnecessarily complex. I rather go raw and risk a virus than put up with the above 99.9% of the time.
but mostly these programs make your computer slow, unstable, and unnecessarily complex
Wow - we sure have different experiences :)
In two cases the reformat was overkill.. but I run the machines as a sideline to the other 99 things I do here, and frankly I didn't have time to figure out what the hell he'd done... and he's one of those users that won't tell you the truth about what he's done even if he can remember.
About half of my users here fiddle with their machines - company policy be damned - one even reformated his hard drive on his own last month (without a fresh backup I might add). Sadly, the bosses won't act on it because a) we have a very friendly workplace and, heaven forbid, a bit of discipline might put people in a bad mood, and b) there are three bosses, and two of them are fiddlers themselves.
but mostly these programs make your computer slow, unstable, and unnecessarily complex
I'm with Mardi Gras on that one.
apologies for the tone.
Richard
Sobig Virus article [eweek.com]
richlowe, I know of companies like that and some of the more tech savvy guys take it as a challenge! One I know of has even found a highly secretive way of making himself an admin without anyone knowing (and he works with an enormously high global security level)!
I suppose everyone has their own comfort level.
The only real annoying thing with NAV is the pop up to tell you it is scanning each outgoing email (has anyone found a way of disabling this?)
Plus on windows XP when you have multiple accounts it downloads them all at the same time which makes it for me more difficult to see which email had the virus (anyone know how to get it to download them one email addy at a time like with the olders systems?)
Plus on windows XP when you have multiple accounts it downloads them all at the same time
I had this problem and it was with Office XP. I uninstalled Office XP, installed Office 2000 (with all patches). Problem solved. Nothing to do with windows XP.
Richard Lowe
