Email from Microsoft?

[Janet]

Hi

I received an email which purports to be from Microsoft.
If it's a fake they've done a nice job with the HTML. It
has an attached file named UPDATE8954.exe ( 142k) It has
the following message:
----------------
Microsoft Partner

This is the latest version of security update,
the "September 2003, Cumulative Patch" update which
eliminates all known security vulnerabilities affecting MS
Internet Explorer, MS Outlook and MS Outlook Express as
well as three newly discovered vulnerabilities
------------------

I have never received anything like this before I often
check my Windows 2000 Professional at the Windows Update
site. This week the verdict was my security patches are
up to date.

Is this email really from Microsoft? Or is it a very well
produced fake to trick me into running nasty .EXE?

 

[Kevin]

Delete..... and use mailwasher www.mailwasher.net

 

[rroche83]

No it's not from Microsoft. It's actually a virus from
someone who harvests email addresses from these
newsgroups! I've rec'd about 2 dozen copies of that
exact email (and variations of it) and it all started
immediately after I posted something on here.

 

[Veronica Loell]

This has a connection to the newsgroups, but it is a secondary effect of
someone getting infected. See


rroche83 wrote / skrev:

 

[Guest]

It's A fake !!!!
Microsoft never send attached files!!
thei sent linksa to thei download center!!!

 

[Veronica Loell]

Ron wrote / skrev:

This morning I received a similar message from a source
that appears to be "MS Corporation Internet Security
Division" with subject "Internet Critical Patch".
Apparently, the actual source
is "(e-mail address removed)". It looks quite
professional, with Microsoft copyright and terms of use,
and it even contains legitimate URL links to Microsoft
Technical Support, but it also has an attachment
containing a virus, that was fortuneately detected by
Norton AV.

The virus SWEN is a massmailing worm. If your system gets infected it
harvests emailadresses from your computer and sends either the html-mail
or a faked message-return message. See
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?url=/technet/security/virus/alerts/swen.asp
for more information.