viruses and hoaxes

Living in largely a Macintosh world, my exposure to email borne viruses is negligible. Years ago there was a worm that made its' way around but other than that, I don't have to worry about these things much. My largely Macintosh world is but a teeny percentage of the total and life is surely different for most of you as evidenced by the amount of return mail I get that would indicate someone that has me in their address book is infected.

One of the most common questions I get involves viruses. The call usually goes like this: "Help, I just got an email delivery failure notification notice and I didn't even send this email!!! It says it was rejected because of a suspect attachment or something. Do I have a virus? Has someone taken over my computer???"

It's easy to see why people are getting confused. The "script kiddies" who write these things are getting more and more sophisticated. It's quite strange to get the one from the "administrator of your domain" saying that to make sure you'll continue to get mail you need to open the attached file and enter the password included below. I got calls from internet savvy people that don't usually call for this sort of thing on that one...

Here's the deal. Use virus software and update the definitions religiously. Our mail servers have virus filtering as well as spam filters so the number of viruses that make it through should be minimal, however, the safest thing you can do is not open attachments unless you know what they are. Viruses often come in the form of .pif or .exe files (and countless others) and require that you open them so they can start executing instructions. With the latest rounds, they start setting up their own little mail server so they can raid your address book and spread the virus pretending to be someone in your address book, clog mail servers, or maybe just hit a big web site so many times with so many computers that it brings the servers to their knees.

When you're in one of these infected users guest book and the mail gets rejected for some reason, YOU get the bounce message. Don't let it leave you scratching your head for too long! Delete it. Move on. There's nothing you can do about it other than follow the simple rule of not opening attachments when you don't know what they are. It should be pretty simple. Not knowing the sender is a pretty good indicator. An attachment with a strange file ending is another. Delete it. Don't think twice.

email hoaxes

I know I've offended some people who have sent me chain letters and the like via email and to those individuals I'm sorry I didn't phrase my criticism in such a way that it didn't sting a little or something... I don't know... Why people who are otherwise sane smart business people will forward something that's too good to be true to friends and business associates is beyond me.

Most of these are easy to spot. They're from some guy in Nigeria that wants to give you a bunch of money to hold a bunch of money and all he needs is access to your bank account. They're telling you that Bill Gates has a way of tracking where all of these emails are sent to and from and will reward you with thousands of dollars if you participate in the chain but that BAD THINGS will happen to you if you break it.

It's all crap (as my friend Terry would say), and it clogs peoples email boxes, hampers productivity, etc., etc... Some people think it's fun. I got one the other day that had the forwarded addresses for must be 20 rounds of this thing. Were I not who I am, I could have popped them all in a database and had a bunch of good addresses to spam (Note this is sarcasm, we don't spam for ourselves or our clients however we do responsibly email large groups of people who have opted-in for marketing/informational purposes).

Here's a place where Google is definitely your friend. If you get something in your email that asks you to forward it to your 100 closest friends, do a search on it first. Take a small phrase from it. If it's a hoax, there's a website that has quoted it. Most of these have been around for years.

They are like a virus. Delete them, and don't look back!

What are we doing to help?

Chris Jett has written an application called Counteragent that works with Eudora Internet Mail Server on MacOSX in conjunction with Virex to screen viruses and delete them AT THE MAILSERVER. Spam filters are also made use of in an attempt to keep your email experience more productive and enjoyable.