Re: [OT] Fake-MS spam?

On 19 Sep 2003 at 19:08, Brian Burger wrote:

> Anyone else drowning in spam that pretends to be from some Microshaft
> support team? I've been getting those & odd 'bounced email' messages
> in droves for about 24hrs now...

Yep. According to Slashdot earlier today, it's the Swen or Gibe.F 
virus. 
 
> I've deleted 500+ of the damned things. Happily, I use PineMail thru a
> telent connection, which is normally a bit clunky but is TOTALLY
> virus-proof!

I'm pretty safe, too. I used to use Agent, but now I use Pegasus. I 
really should be filtering these suckers on the server, though the 
main problem was yesterday when the payload of 146K was sneaking 
through AT&T's virus filter. This is painful, as I have a dial-up 
connection (and not a speedy one at that). Today, though, the e-mails 
were mostly chopped down to 14K, or there abouts, but it's still a 
major pain. I deleted 166 since this afternoon (about 8 hours ago), 
deleted 85 in the two hours before that, and had over 100 this 
morning.

What really burns me is that this is based on a fault in Outlook, IE, 
and Outlook Express that was discovered _years_ ago. It steams me 
that idiots create these things, but I'm starting to get equally 
annoyed with people who have obviously bookmarked my e-mail address 
but haven't bothered updating the security patches on their software!

> Apparently there's a new virus around, nastier & more inventive than
> previous ones...

Nope: see above. It's actually a rather _old_ exploit, but it's 
pretty virulent. The virus may be nastier, but the security hole 
should have been plugged by folks ages ago.

-- 

Allan Goodall		     agoodall@hyperbear.com
http://www.hyperbear.com

The only normal people are the ones you don't know 
well! - Joe Ancis