Computer Viruses OT

[capt jake]

OK, I have a question for y'all. Over teh past year or so I have been getting e-mails from people telling me to stop sending viruses to them via e-mail. Lately I have been getting notices from major corporations stating the same (auto generated via their scanning tools). This morning, my virus software told me that I recieved an infected e-mail from ME. :oops: When I scan my computer, I have never detected any of the suspect viruses, thus, i do not see any way they could have originated from me.

Now, I have faithfully kept anti-virus software and update it daily. All of the infected are from my old e-mail address (which still works).

It appears as though somebody else has access to my e-mail address and is propogating these from another location.

How can this be??? Any ideas??

BTW, the people an corporations are people I do not know or have ever had exchanges with.

[Stuart Benbow]

Just a guess, but somebody you know has you in their address book, and has the actual virus. It probably replaces the sender with another name from the host computers address book, so as to avoid tipping off the host user. Quite a few exhibit this kind of behavior. If you turn on the header information, you may find that the actual sender may be listed in there somewhere.

Hope this helps. Wish we could club all the virus writers and toss them overboard in a heavy sea.

[TexasPhil]

A couple of possibilities:

As you mentioned, someone else could have access to your old email account. Go change the password on it, if it stops, then you have verification.

Another, more plausable possibility is that the server of your old email has been infected by the virus and is sending emails to everyone it knows. This would be more likely if it is a windows server, but there are a few linux/unix viruses too.

Third posibility is someone else is sending email using your account name, without actually using it. This is EXTREMELY easy to do, and is very common, especially with spammers.

Your best solution is to delete that old account.

[TexasPhil]

Wish we could club all the virus writers and toss them overboard in a heavy sea.

AMEN!

I would also like to throw spammers in that boat too!

[Robert Cox]

The SoBig virus works in such a way that it picks up your e-mail address from the address book of an infected computer. Not yours. It then uses your address to to spread it's self among other computers. The fix? You've already solved it by having an up to date anti-virus program. A firewall is highly recommended. This is a virus that has infected someone elses computer so the problem really isn't on your end.

The other possablity is that you have been hit by a trojan horse virus that comes from and e-mail sent to you and it sends your usser/screen name and browser password to the origanator who then uses them to send out spam. I've had this happen to me. The fix? Change your password often. The virus doesn't disrupt or hurt your computer, just steals your info.

Bob

[capt jake]

Well I do use a firewall; I guess you guys confirmed what I already thought. I guess I just live with it for a bit, maybe it will go away.

A lot of people still contact me via the old account, so I hate to delete it. I have yet to update my website which still reflects teh old e-mail. I should update it soon, though i don't know if I can remember how. :oops:

[Zeroice]

I just read an article a www.slashdot.com about this and it happened to my wife as well. It seems to me as well that it is a matter of your email address being on a mass mailing that does contain the virus and the automated software just replys and mass emails to everyone on the list. Check out the artice it should still be there.