Hi Everyone,
I just recieved an email from a good internet friend, Joe Carola. I believe he posts here as “Framer”
The email, which I’m am sure he did not send himself, was generated by the klez worm virus.
If you recieve an email from him with an attachment about klez worm protection, and your virus checker doesn’t catch it, DON’T open the attachment.
Happy New Year to All,
Ken
Replies
Ken,
Ken,
I had no idea about this until I read your post, thank you. I was talking to Joe Fusco at the time and thanks to him he helped me(I'm giving him gray hair, like I gave my wife) with SYMATEC and I ran the Klez removal tool and it came up that I had no virus.
Does this mean that I'm not Loved any more ;-)
Joe Carola
Just means that someone else has you in their address book, and also has the Klez virus.
The virus picks addresses out of the infected person's address book, and sends the infected email out, pretending to be that person.
Heck, it could have been Ken's own machine, sending him the virus again. LOL
Quittin' Time
The Klez is nothing to mess with- I got it and it infected 30 of my programs. I went out and bought a new computer and had a firewall installed.
Zone Alarm- is a good firewall and can be downloaded off the internet.
Bob
"Rather be a hammer than a nail"
Luka,
Suppose the virus infected someones computer, (let's say yours, for example) and got into your address book. Suppose it found Joe Carola's email address, and mailed itself out to him. Wouldn't it show up on Joe's computer as having come from you?
That's the part I don't understand. The infected email came from Joe Carola, and was sent to me. How could Klez do that from your computer, or anyone elses?
Is Klez nasty enough to be able to pick one person's email address from your address book ( for example) and mail it to another email address from your address book?
Is Klez nasty enough to be able to pick one person's email address from your address book ( for example) and mail it to another email address from your address book?
Yep._______________________
"I may have said the same thing before... But my explanation, I am sure, will always be different." Oscar Wilde
Looks like everyone else has pretty much answered your question.
The nutshell answer to your questions is, of course... Yes, it can do any of those things. And does.
One point I want to make to everyone reading...
If you get an email from someone, and it has any sort of virus or other malware in it... Don't be too quick to castigate the one you got the email from. It just may not have come from them at all. If it did indeed, come from thier computer, it is probably not something they are even aware of. I think that the huge vast majority of malware emails come from people who have no clue about infections, and certainly have no malicious intent toward you personaly. They have been infected, they don't know it, and they don't know that their computer is trying to infect your computer.
My ISP has a virus filter. It is not the best. It filters a lot of harmless stuff. I could do without it, because I have a good anti-virus myself. But one thing that I like about my ISP's filter is that when they filter a message, they automaticaly send a notice back to the sender, that their computer may be infected.
If you get an infected email, definately send a notice back to the sender that they may be infected. Even though the email may not have come from them, in reality. You just never know. And don't be to quick to blame them. Just teach them what they need to know.
Quittin' Time
That's right Luka. I was blasting people with emails thru my puter I was unaware of. It was sending mail to people I never heard of from people I didn't know. I didn't know it would send stuff as soon as I came online. It wasn't until a friend in Austria send me an email explaining what was happening and a site to go to to disinfect my puter.
Dam puter greenhorns anyhow. Seems the worlds full of 'em.
Character? I never had any problem with character. Why, people've been telling me I was one every since I was a kid.
Edited 1/3/2003 7:42:15 PM ET by rez
I teach Computer Science full time at the local college, and I receive lots of email from students, including assigned programming projects. I use neither a firewall nor virus protection software. I haven't gotten a virus in the last 6 years (I had one machine infected in 1996 when viruses were somewhat new). I follow simple rules, the first of which is that I never open an email attachment which is executable (.exe or .com) unless I'm expecting it. I download software only from trustworthy sites such as http://www.cnet.com. And I refuse to use Microsoft Outlook. Outlook, in its efforts to be user-friendly, does too many things automatically. This makes it possible for the outside world to trick Outlook into doing nasty things to your computer, automatically.
Ken correctly referred to the Klez problem as a "worm". A pure virus spreads itself by modifying executable files (.exe's), whereas a pure worm usually spreads itself via email. There are also hybrids which do both.
I personally use PocoMail to receive email. There is a free version and a cheap registered version. I would recommend this software to anyone who is a notch above "beginner" and wants a bit more control over their email. Go to http://www.pocomail.com if you're interested.
While a firewall is useful it won't do anything to protect agains viruses.
Look at your computer as a speaker phone that is always connected in a room with a parrot. If some one comes along and just keep trying different phone lines until it finds one that is open and then just ask the parrot if it know where the spare key is and then the parrot repsonds.
Now a firewall will protect against that kind of problem. One way that firewall works is by only allow messages in that are responses to messages that it sends out. So it sends a message to the mail server asking if it has many mail for it and will only accept a message in return from the mail server. It won't accept the message ask the parrot about the spare key.
However, viruses come attached to emails. So when you aks for your email that the server will rightfully send all of your email including any with viruses attached. It takes an anti virus program to detect that the virus is attached to that email.
"While a firewall is useful it won't do anything to protect agains viruses. "
True, a firewall won't stop you from receiving a virus, but some firewalls protect you in both directions. In other words, they detect packets that are being sent by your computer to the outside world. Such firewalls can protect you from spyware or a worm which is sending information from your computer to the outside world.
I've been getting as many as 4 emails a day with that same virus in them. I get messages like this:
"The e-mail server at wamusa.com has reported that you were sent an E-mail from [email protected], containing the : W32/Klez.H@mm virus."
I emailed my ISP about it, but he couldn't help me. He said the virus masked which email address it actually came from, so he couldn't tell me the source of the emails. The ISP has a filter that blocks the delivery of emails with viruses, so I don't really have to worry about getting it. (And I don't use MS outlook)
Maybe someone else who uses these forums has the virus, and just doesn't know it? It doesn't bother me so much that I'm getting these emails - What bothers me is that I can't tell who has the virus soI can let them know.
I'm going through an awkward stage.
You know, the one between birth and death.
It'd be hard not to know if your computer was infected: klez sends itself out through your address book, and many corporate or educational servers catch it before it gets to the recipient. When that happens, it's bounced back to you with a message from the other server. So if you start getting a lot of odd messages returned to your computer, hey you got it.
LEE
I don't know exactly what the klez worm looks like, but I got the "Magistr" virus from someone on this board last year. It was sneaky in a number of ways. Because it looks in the user's own email program for addresses AND email title AND email content; it is a person you know, it is a possible title of an email from them, and the paragraph is something they would say (although not neccessarily to you). Being naive about such things, I opened the attachment to figure out why this guy, who I had emailed back and forth with before, was sending me this message that sounded real but misdirected.
NEVER OPEN AN ATTACHMENT, even (especially?) from someone you know unless you have asked them to send it or it is clearly a word or excel document that it reasonable to expect from them.
I spent the next 24 hours learning/installing better virus protection and writing a lot of explanatory, apologetic emails to friends and business associates.
Alaska, Hawaii, some other states and all of Europe don't have capital punishment. But for virus hackers and spammers? Seems like we should make an exception!
David Thomas Overlooking Cook Inlet in Kenai, Alaska
Edited 1/3/2003 2:03:49 PM ET by David Thomas
Ya, you've got to have virus protection and keep it up to date. I was out of town and had a little puter I was using just for email, ebay and breaktime and thought I could slip by without antivirus. Then my nephews shoots me an email from home. He didn't know the virus protection he had needed to be updated and purchased annually and had let it slip. So I was introduced to klez and another forced learning experience about puters.
They should turn over all computer hackers and virus authors to the people and let us formulate an accurate punishment to fit the crime. heh hehCharacter? I never had any problem with character. Why, people've been telling me I was one every since I was a kid.
My question is is this...What ever happens to these people that cause the virus? Do they actually find them? Seems to me they would have better things to do. Guess they are really bored.Tamara
NEVER OPEN AN ATTACHMENT, even (especially?) from someone you know unless you have asked them to send it or it is clearly a word or excel document that it reasonable to expect from them.
Any MS application based file should be scanned for viruses regardless of how trustworthy the sourse.
_______________________
"I may have said the same thing before... But my explanation, I am sure, will always be different." Oscar Wilde
"Any MS application based file should be scanned for viruses regardless of how trustworthy the sourse."
Micro$oft is a virus, period.
Micro$oft is a virus, period.
Quite right!
With Micro$oft, failure isn't an option; it's built into into the operating system._______________________
"I may have said the same thing before... But my explanation, I am sure, will always be different." Oscar Wilde
I've been getting the Klez virus Emails sent to me constantly. Maybe twice a day but my Norton anti virus w/ firewall notifies me every time it comes so I just delete it with no problems over the past several months. I think Ipaid about $75 for the Norton program.
a
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