It never seems to end...

[cookala]

Heads up on yet another virus (seems we've been hit with a plethora of them lately). Last week it was the lovsan worm coupled with the blackout, it really caused my employer huge headaces and big bucks to fix. The new one is called the GoBig virus and it's distinguished by a < sign in front of the FROM: name and it has a .pif file attached. Don't open that file, or you'll be sorry.

cookala
cursing microsoft to hell
for not taking care of business
:mad:

[Rachel Bunting]

Also, this one seems to be big in Asia:

There's a "good worm" that follows the lovsan worm around, trying to fix whatever lovsan broke. Problem is, it still acts like a worm, and shuts you down in the middle of what you're doing.

More info (probably clearer info) on CNN.com.

Rachel

[Kristi]

[SIZE=3]I got all three of these today! Click carefully fellow PFFAers...

Facts to know:
--The e-mail carrying the virus contains any one of these subject lines: "Your details," "Thank you!," "Your application" and "Wicked screensaver." --The e-mail contains an attachment with a .pir or .scr file name.
What you should do if you see it in your e-mail box:
--Delete it. Do not click on the message. Do not download or open the attachment.[/SIZE]

SoBig Isn't Done: Worst Yet to Come
As if the SoBig.F computer virus weren't bad enough as it turns millions of innocent computers into vicious spam machines, experts warned today that you ain't seen nothin' yet, baby. The worst is yet to come, warns CNN/Money. And that would be on Monday when everyone who was on vacation this week comes back to work to find an e-mail box that could contain the virus. As those messages are opened, it will set it off all over again.

Why you could still get hit:
--When the attachment is downloaded and opened, it infects the computer and then sends itself to others using an e-mail address randomly chosen from the address book. So if your friend Joe gets hit with the SoBig.F virus. It then chooses a name randomly from Joe's address book--possibly yours--and replicates itself in a mass e-mail using that name. If your name is the one it choose, you could receive a message from a friend or even your company saying you transmitted a virus even if you didn't.


SoBig has the distinction of not only spreading faster and further than any other virus to date, but also it's not abating. Viruses typically peak on the first day they hit and then subside as computer users download patches. That's not happening this time. SoBig is getting, well, so big. "We expect these to drop-off on the second day, but we're not seeing that this time," Mark Sunner, chief technology officer of MessageLabs told CNN/Money. "The e-mail component built into SoBig is so efficient that it has just reached that critical mass where it's got fertile ground to continue to grow." Sumner's best guess is that SoBig will be a problem until the middle or end of next week. "I would actually predict we'll see real spike on Monday," he said. "With so many people on vacation this week, this has sat in [e-mail] in trays waiting to strike, and these are the same users who won't have an up-to-date patch to address it," he warned CNN/Money.

[arthur_henry]

It boggles my mind who would open such attachments, knowing full well of these kinds of viruses.

[David Bowers]

For anybody with virus-based blues, get Norton 2003 Professional. Since I installed it I've had zero problems (apart from the annoying XP worm-thing I was talking about in the post a few rungs down from here) - it auto-updates its virus definition files (almost) daily, scans emails before they're opened and protects the ports used by MSN messenger and P2P filesharing software such as Kazaa Lite and Imesh with its auto-guard program (which, by the way, is much better than the free AntiVir alternative).

Regards,
Dave.

[cookala]

Norton is good for home use, but we use McAfee at work as it's better suited to our LAN/WAN. McAfee also has a really nice feature even if you don't use their product - you can create an account that will email you virus notifications before you even hear about it in the news.

cookala
forewarning is a good thing.

[Kristi]

It boggles my mind who would open such attachments, knowing full well of these kinds of viruses.The people you refer to are "The Aunts." 1 with no connections, 1 who will not touch a computer for a month if she hears of a virus and 2 who will open anything at anytime...who could pass up hearing a good "Thank You!" ? Then there's my mom. "Mama, I got 3 of those virus messages today." "Oh, so now everything doesn't work?"

Yes, Mama,
I clicked ALL THREE
just to see
what the damage
would be!

[Kristi]

This is amazing. I've been receiving the soBig or goBig (whatever) virus in emails ALL stinkin day. I totalled up what I've counted and I've been getting them at increments of 1 every 5 to 10 minutes since about 2pm this afternoon. Before that I was only getting about 1 an hour.

Is anyone else (not affected or stupid enuf to open them) amused by this??

Kristi
*camping out all night to watch my Bulk Mail folder expand*

[Dunc]

I must have cause to be very grateful to my net service provider, since I know (expressly) two of my usual correspondents who got peppered with SoBig; but I've had nothing, so someone's set-up has intercepted the output from their computers.

Of course, OE deletes every freakin' attachment willy-nilly - the Microsoft solution to dangerous attachments is to kill the lot - so that if one had got through, I'd doubtless have clicked on it, but the attachment part wouldn'ta been available - not that I open such things anyway. Regards / Dunc

[cookala]

Dunc, you've just been lucky. I deleted a SoBIg msg just yesterday from my Yahoo mailbox - first time that's ever happened.

cookala
as the saying goes -
there's a first time for everything

[Kristi]

cookala- yahoo is what I use. I deleted 32 more since I posted.

Of course I tend to send out MASS emails, I'm sure that's why my inbox is so popular :rolleyes:

[Dunc]

I don't Yahoo. I AAPT (for cash). And - I hope I finish this post before I get struck down for hubris - I haven't had one. None. Not any. Not so far. Regards / Dunc

[cookala]

Originally posted by Kristi
cookala- yahoo is what I use. I deleted 32 more since I posted.

Of course I tend to send out MASS emails, I'm sure that's why my inbox is so popular :rolleyes:

Kristi, that's a good possibility.

SoBig is the first virus I've ever gotten in Yahoo - and I think I only got maybe 4 msgs that were carrying the virus, so I'm not squaking. Considering the number of bugs infesting the web, that's not bad at all. What was bad about lovsan and SoBig is that they somehow got past my employer's firewall - and infected every remote site. Our WAN and our LAN both went down for awhile - and that means big bucks - not only to fix but also to recoup losses. That's what was so surprising about these two viruses - and believe me, we've got some pretty sophisticated firewall software. It's ironic that Yahoo came through this better than our own webserver did.

cookala
I'll say it again -
it never seems to end

[Kristi]

I've only gotten 3 since yesterday... whew!!

Yay :)

[Tony Hoffman]

None today, milagro de milagros. The worst thing was all the messages with attachments that were returned to me as undeliverable; somebody (or the virus) had co-opted my e-mail address (probably pulled it from some newsgroup) and used it as a return, as if I had sent the infected messages (though there's no sign my machine was infected, and my machine wasn't even connected during the times that most of the messages were sent). So my name is mud all over the Internet--or would be, if what happened to me hadn't no doubt happened to countless other people.

[Kristi]

Tony,
What does "milagros" mean? I have a friend from the Philippines named "Milagros"...?

Kristi

[Tony Hoffman]

Hi, Kristi--

Miracles.

Tony