Email virus question

I just received a fraudulent email, supposedly from 'Hallmark.com', inviting
me to view an e-card which contained the Win32:Zapchast-CR Trojan virus -
fortunately Avast detected it.

I'm just wondering - how do these morons obtain email addresses in the first
place? Have they hacked into Hallmark's database?

I never use my real address in newsgroups, nor when signing up for anything,
I use a Yahoo account in those cases.

Thanks very much for any replies.

Craig

Craig Fox wrote:

> I just received a fraudulent email, supposedly from 'Hallmark.com',
> inviting me to view an e-card which contained the Win32:Zapchast-CR
> Trojan virus - fortunately Avast detected it.

Yes, fortunately. And you hope the trojan wasn't actually installed.

Begs the question, do you click on every link someone or something sends
you? :-)

> I'm just wondering - how do these morons obtain email addresses in
> the first place? Have they hacked into Hallmark's database?

How do they obtain *your* address? Same as all the rest of the spammers.
They harvest it from .. a website guestbook you posted to; they make it
up; one of your friends has it in their address book and contracted a
worm which read the address book. The sources are endless. And no, they
didn't get it from "hallmark."

> I never use my real address in newsgroups, nor when signing up for
> anything, I use a Yahoo account in those cases.

See above about friends with worms and viruses. I do notice you are
using the munge of "here.com" which is apparently owned by a Michael
Grossman of Herndon, Virginia. You are doing him a disservice by using
his domain (causing spam to be sent to it). Use "example.com" or
"example.invalid" which will prevent spam being sent to a real person.

--
-bts
-Motorcycles defy gravity; cars just suck

On Tue, 4 Dec 2007 23:31:24 -0000, "Craig Fox" <Blue@here.com> wrote:

>I just received a fraudulent email, supposedly from 'Hallmark.com', inviting
>me to view an e-card which contained the Win32:Zapchast-CR Trojan virus -
>fortunately Avast detected it.
>

Detected or not you wouldn't have opened it. Would you?

>I'm just wondering - how do these morons obtain email addresses in the first
>place? Have they hacked into Hallmark's database?
>

Why would they need to hack a database? They can use any addresses
they want.

>I never use my real address in newsgroups, nor when signing up for anything,
>I use a Yahoo account in those cases.
>

I've used a real address on newsgroups for nearly 15 years. It's never
caused any problems.

Steve

--
Neural Planner Software Ltd

http://www.easynn.com
http://www.tropheus.demon.co.uk