billp
10-06-2010, 01:06 PM
I have just received my third "infected file" in a week from friends ( including one Shopbotter) who had NO idea that they were involved in the delivery process. In each case their address had been grabbed by some lower form of life, and then their address book was raided and used to send out infected spam mail. In two of the cases it is probably because they, (like many people) thought it would be nice to "share a joke"with me, etc., etc. but either because of their lack of knowledge, or it was too easy to just hit "send" they became part of the problem.
While I understand that none of these people had any inkling of the issue, I have to believe that if I got three infected files, there are many more people who are also receiving them. The common link to all three of these messages was that the subject line of the message said "no subject". Luckily I have been testing a free version of AVG's anti virus software, and it caught all three of them.
Here is the body of text I have sent to some people who have a habit of doing this on a regular basis.
Here is a copy of a message I have just sent out to a few people who do the same thing over and over, hitting "forward" without deleting the names. If it's any consolation you are the THIRD person in a week who has had this happen ( and therefore sent me "infected"files in their mail) .Maybe you can send this along to your friends "upstream"so it does NOT happen to you/me again...
Please do the BOTH of us a favor; when you "forward" jokes, pictures, etc. from someone else, PLEASE "strip" ALL of the prior senders names from the message before you hit the "send" button. I say this because this past week alone I have been hit with three viruses from friends who were NOT doing this.
What happens is that when those messages get forwarded YOUR name or MY name gets passed around the web, and anyone who is in the chain ( either upstream, or downstream) now becomes fair play for spammers/hackers/sleazeballs etc. All it takes is ONE person who does not have anti virus protection ( that is current) and the entire list of names gets "grabbed" by one of these leeches. They can then either use the accumulated names for spamming purposes, or more commonly they SELL YOUR NAME to other sleazeballs.
In the worst case scenario they can/will use that unprotected person's computer as a "dummy terminal" ( how appropriate) and then proceed to send spam or VIRUSES from that computer, and the owner has NO idea until they get angry messages from (former) friends. One of the three people who "sent" me a virus this week said "but I have Norton how could this happen", it's easy- you have to keep updating your virus definitions all the time as there are hundreds of new ones developed each week. And Norton is no longer the gold standard in the industry. I've caught all three viruses with a free version of anti virus software from AVG which you can download.
I know that it's easy to just hit the "forward" button when you see something that's funny, but having to totally wipe a hard drive clean and start all over is NO JOKE...
THANKS
PS- You might want to pass this message along to others (one at a time) ...
While I understand that none of these people had any inkling of the issue, I have to believe that if I got three infected files, there are many more people who are also receiving them. The common link to all three of these messages was that the subject line of the message said "no subject". Luckily I have been testing a free version of AVG's anti virus software, and it caught all three of them.
Here is the body of text I have sent to some people who have a habit of doing this on a regular basis.
Here is a copy of a message I have just sent out to a few people who do the same thing over and over, hitting "forward" without deleting the names. If it's any consolation you are the THIRD person in a week who has had this happen ( and therefore sent me "infected"files in their mail) .Maybe you can send this along to your friends "upstream"so it does NOT happen to you/me again...
Please do the BOTH of us a favor; when you "forward" jokes, pictures, etc. from someone else, PLEASE "strip" ALL of the prior senders names from the message before you hit the "send" button. I say this because this past week alone I have been hit with three viruses from friends who were NOT doing this.
What happens is that when those messages get forwarded YOUR name or MY name gets passed around the web, and anyone who is in the chain ( either upstream, or downstream) now becomes fair play for spammers/hackers/sleazeballs etc. All it takes is ONE person who does not have anti virus protection ( that is current) and the entire list of names gets "grabbed" by one of these leeches. They can then either use the accumulated names for spamming purposes, or more commonly they SELL YOUR NAME to other sleazeballs.
In the worst case scenario they can/will use that unprotected person's computer as a "dummy terminal" ( how appropriate) and then proceed to send spam or VIRUSES from that computer, and the owner has NO idea until they get angry messages from (former) friends. One of the three people who "sent" me a virus this week said "but I have Norton how could this happen", it's easy- you have to keep updating your virus definitions all the time as there are hundreds of new ones developed each week. And Norton is no longer the gold standard in the industry. I've caught all three viruses with a free version of anti virus software from AVG which you can download.
I know that it's easy to just hit the "forward" button when you see something that's funny, but having to totally wipe a hard drive clean and start all over is NO JOKE...
THANKS
PS- You might want to pass this message along to others (one at a time) ...