There is a new Virus out. The e-mail message says that your PayPal account is coing to expire in a few days. it asks you to open an attachment- fill out the information to update your account- and them mail it back to them. It says not to e-mail the info back to them.
Diane Balch
Posted by Dave Grundy (Member # 103) on :
Thanks for the heads-up Diane. Since I don't have a Pay Pal account it would't be something that I'd even pay attention to though.
The thing that gets me is that there might be some folks out there who don't have up to date anti-virus software installed and get regular up to date virus definitions to protect themselves.
I don't mean the "freebie" anti-virus stuff, I mean the real anti-virus software that costs the huge sum of about $100 (Cdn) and about $29/year to continue the coverage.
Several years ago I had the arrogance to think that I would never get a virus, since I only opened attachments I knew were from safe contacts.
I was wrong, and it cost me over $600 to recover from my mistake, not counting the inconvenience and lost revenue from being without a computer for a couple of days.
In my humble opinion, virus "warnings/alerts" shouldn't be needed (despite the good-intentions of those posting them)
Let those who are silly enough to cruise the internet and e-mail without protection learn the hard way!!!! I did!!!LOL
Being on the internet without UP-TO-DATE anti-virus is like going to a brothel without a condom...yer GONNA get "something"
Diane, I am in no way belittling your warning, just expressing my views. Posted by Doug Allan (Member # 2247) on :
Do you have a link to any detailed info on that?
I got that today. I didn't click on the attachment, but I wish I never opened the email either.
I don't detect any infection, & neither did Norton, but having just used paypal yesterday, I was not surprised to see the email & opened it.
From there it was suspicious immediatly because somehow, somewhere along the line, the content of the message had references to a virus in some garbled text that seemed to have interfered with the original intended look of the message. Maybe that was a reference that my AV software had already gotten involved? My instinct was to delete it so fast, as if hurrying at that point would help anything.
Posted by Doug Allan (Member # 2247) on :
BTW Dave... don't let "up-to-date" definitions lull you into any false sense of security either. They can't create the updated virus definitions until after the virus presents itself & starts spreading. Some people have to get infected & notify Symantec or whoever before they can start updating the protection.
Posted by Dave Grundy (Member # 103) on :
I fully understand Doug..Good point.
But, by the time someone posts a virus alert, the virus has already been identified by Norton or McAfee or whoever and it's definition and cure have already been downloaded to the customers computer. As long as they have up-to-date automatic software.
By the way, I still think that a lot these viruses are concocted by the ANTI virus companies as a "make work/job creation/make money" venture!!!!
Anyone have any comments on the last paragraph??? LOL Posted by Curtis hammond (Member # 2170) on :
No virus alerts? Keep your anti stuff updated?? Doesn't always help.
If that reasoning was true then why did the blaster worm propagate the entire planet in a matter of about ten minutes.
Worms and virii are getting really good at defeating the anti crowd.
The next big one will not be through a email problem it wil be through an exploit in OS's
Virus alerts are a great way to stop some porblems. An alert to me from a posting kept my server from attack.
Posted by Scott Pagan (Member # 2507) on :
2 in my inbox this morning here at work... NAV caught them at our mail server. although i do have paypal, my work address isn't in the profile.
[ January 22, 2004, 08:35 AM: Message edited by: Scott Pagan ]
Posted by Fred Weiss (Member # 3662) on :
Interesting since I received a legitimate email from PayPal along the same lines. It, however, references the last 4 digits of the credit card I have listed in my account there and also provides the following:
quote: PROTECT YOUR PASSWORD
NEVER give your password to anyone and ONLY log in at https://www.paypal.com/. Protect yourself against fraudulent websites by opening a new web browser (e.g. Internet Explorer or Netscape) and typing in the PayPal URL every time you log in to your account.
Posted by Diane Crowther (Member # 120) on :
Doug, as a secondary defence, make sure your email is setup with NO preview pane. Then, if you want to sneek a peek at a suspicious email without actually opening it, right-click on the message and choose "Properties". Click on "Details" and look at the return path to see if it seems legitimate. Then click on "Message Source" and scroll down to the body of the message so see if there's anything you can read that will give you a clue of it's authenticity.
If you don't like the looks of things, you can decide to delete the message without ever having "opened" it.
I'm assuming you're using Outlook Express.
Posted by Rick Sacks (Member # 379) on :
Back in the early days of this BB, Donna Williams turned us on to a utility called "eremove.exe" that is a free download. I use that utility to view the headers online and delete those unwanted from my server before they ever get downloaded to my computer. Donna, thanks again!
PS. I'm still using 98SE, and I don't know if it will work with XP or 2000 or any of the more current operating systems.
Posted by Doug Allan (Member # 2247) on :
Thanks Diane. I did learn that trick here & use it now.
The key words on your post were "sneek a peek at a suspicious email" In my case, having done business with paypal the day before, my defenses were down & the email didn't look suspicious.
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