Forum Moderators: phranque
i haven't opened any, am wondering if its some kind of virus.
anyone know??
i thought pif files were some kind of virtual business cards, but it would be most unusual to get 3 sent in one morning all with no covering email
If I remember correctly, the pif files used to help DOS programs run in windows 3.1, although, it seems, they are still used.
I have no idea why someone would send you this without content, however, I would beware of the content, and, also, beware of the e-mail.
I received several files with a .pif extension or doc.pif extension: They had the Syrcam virus.
There was a bug in Macafee antivirus that didn't intercept the email containing the attachement file with that extension. double extension as:
doc.pif or
exe.pif
I was suspicios and I manually did a scansion: there was a Syrcam virus!! If you are using Macafee you should add the PIF extension in the optional extensions, no matter if you selected scan all files.
i investigated further and quickly updated my norton antivirus,
they all had a nice little virus...
for reference two had the attatchment doc.doc.pif
The W32.Badtrans.B@mm virus got through this morning on a blank email with a pif attachment. It zipped through my address book like nobody's business. I eventually cleaned it up... eventually.
The thing about it was that I didn't open it (not being totally stupid). The fact that it was visible unopened through the window of my Outlook Express box was enough. I think it opened itself by virtue of a foreign character in the window which tried to download the translater font. Off it went.
If you get a blank message with an attachment therefore... don't even highlight. Grab and delete.
Thanks again M$ for your great security.
>>>The W32.Badtrans.B@mm virus got through this morning
thats what was transported to me too.
all the best.
Arrived without any attachment indicator in Outlook! The attachment only became evident on preview or attempting to open the message with a request to save attachment to disk.
Also an increase in Sircam32 long after I thought it had died out.
I have received another 3 between posting my original message, and this one.
My boss has a nice little NT network here, and a very elaborate network security policy for everyone to follow... but he didn't know it was possible to change the default browser text size, and never considered using a non-MS email program (which would pretty well eliminate the security issues he's worried about).
A lot of people are only as computer literate as they absolutely need to be... there's no curiosity to go beyond the basics, and patching (or installing) software isn't really basic. We have our network support contractor come in to do all Windows software installations... my lonely little Mac is the only machine that's taken care of in-house, and only because I happen to know how.