fake MS email

[freddy]

Each day I receive 20 emails proclaiming to be from
Microsoft about the recent worm and fixes. Some have
attachments. I have tested my system and installed all the
updates from the real Microsoft. My system is virus free
but I continue to get undeliverable and fake bug emails.
Can someone tell me how to stop these or direct me to a
support area?

Thanks

 

[Jim Macklin]

Turn your computer off or just disconnect from the Internet.



message | Each day I receive 20 emails proclaiming to be from
| Microsoft about the recent worm and fixes. Some have
| attachments. I have tested my system and installed all the
| updates from the real Microsoft. My system is virus free
| but I continue to get undeliverable and fake bug emails.
| Can someone tell me how to stop these or direct me to a
| support area?
|
| Thanks
|

 

[Stan Nelson]

These have been going (and coming) around for some time. Always delete them
and don't worry further about them. Continue to keep your Windows
installation updated using Windows Update (and, I'd recommend, Automatic
Update). But never open or try to install anything you get from any other
source.

Stan Nelson
WinXP Pro SP1

 

[CWatters]

You are not alone. At it's peak I was getting 1500 of these a day so 20 is
quite good really. They are being sent from a computer or computers infected
with a worm or virus and there is little or nothing you can do about it to
stop them being sent.

Current viruses and worms are also sending out fake messages telling you
that "a message you have sent couldn't be delivered" (or similar such
wording). Typically you won't recognise the address to which you are
supposed to have sent the original message - and that's because you didn't
send one.

What you can do is:

a) Pester your ISP to get them to install better junk email filters
b) Set up your own filtering rules using Outlooks Rules Wizard (see under
tools)

Regarding b)....

The best _simple_ filter I've found is one that moves ALL email into a new
folder called "unknown sender" UNLESS it comes from someone listed in your
address book. The downside is that people responding to an avert you place
(for example) will also be moved.

Another good rule simply checks that your email address is in the recipients
address field.

 

[Steve Nielsen]

Get a free copy of Mailwasher and set it to bounce them as undeliverable.

www.mailwasher.net

Steve

 

[Paul]

There's nothing you can do to stop RECEIVING these e-mails. Just because
you get them doesn't mean you're infected. (as long as your antivirus
software is up to date and you haven't opened any of these) Getting these
just means that someone has acquired your address from somewhere and you had
the misfortune of ending up on their list. The only thing you can do to
stop these from coming is to change your e-mail address, dont post it
anywhere in public, and make sure your friends/relatives etc. dont post your
address anywhere.

Paul Vecchione
Cleveland, OH

| Each day I receive 20 emails proclaiming to be from
| Microsoft about the recent worm and fixes. Some have
| attachments. I have tested my system and installed all the
| updates from the real Microsoft. My system is virus free
| but I continue to get undeliverable and fake bug emails.
| Can someone tell me how to stop these or direct me to a
| support area?
|
| Thanks
|

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Greetings --

What you received is either a very common, malicious hoax or the
output of a computer infected by one of several widely publicized,
wide-spread, mass emailing worms. The most widely-known are:

W32.Swen.A_mm
http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/[email protected]

W32.Dumaru_mm
http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/[email protected]

W32.Gibe_mm
http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/[email protected]

Microsoft never has, does not currently, and very probably never
will email unsolicited security patches. At the most, if, and only
if, you subscribe to their security notification newsletter, they will
send you an email informing you that a new patch is available for
downloading.

Microsoft Policies on Software Distribution
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/?url=/technet/security/policy/swdist.asp

Information on Bogus Microsoft Security Bulletin Emails
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?url=/technet/security/news/patch_hoax.asp

How to Tell If a Microsoft Security-Related Message Is Genuine
http://www.microsoft.com/security/antivirus/authenticate_mail.asp

Any and all legitimate patches and updates are readily available
at http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/. (Notice that this is the true
URL, rather than the bogus one that may have been contained in the
email you received.) Any messages that point to any other source(s) or
claim to have the patch attached are bogus.

You're receiving these emails because your email address is in
the address book of someone infected with a worm, and/or because you
posted your real email address somewhere on-line, either in a forum
accessible to the public and spambots, such as Usenet, or on an
untrustworthy web site that subsequently sold your address as part of
a mailing list. One thing you can do is notify _everyone_ with whom
you've ever corresponded via email that one or more of them may be
infected with a mass emailing worm, and should take the appropriate
steps.

There's probably no way of blocking all of the bogus messages, but
you can greatly reduce the number you get by creating a rule, based
upon the most commonly used subject lines, to delete the emails from
the server without ever downloading them.


Bruce Chambers

--
Help us help you:



You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on
having both at once. -- RAH

 

[Richard Mason]

On Tue, 4 Nov 2003, freddy wrote in

Each day I receive 20 emails proclaiming to be from Microsoft about the
recent worm and fixes. Some have attachments. I have tested my system
and installed all the updates from the real Microsoft. My system is
virus free but I continue to get undeliverable and fake bug emails. Can
someone tell me how to stop these or direct me to a support area?

You can't stop these arriving at your mailbox on your ISPs server but
you can avoid actually downloading them to you computer. Ensure you have
mail delivered via POP3, which most ISPs use anyway. With POP3, mail on
the ISPs server can be examined and deleted before it is actually
downloaded, and this is what Mailwasher does. Bouncing mail purporting
to be from Microsoft serves no purpose except to increase traffic.

Alternatively you can use your mail reader's rules to reject (delete)
mail from your ISPs server without using Mailwasher. In my mail reader I
have a simple rule that rejects all mail where the mail header contains
the word 'SUBJECT" instead of the usual 'Subject'. This, so far, deletes
90% of bogus MS mail, and the rest I manually delete after it's
downloaded.

Someone may recommend 'changing your address' when what they mean is
munging or inventing an address.

Read this:
http://members.aol.com/emailfaq/mungfaq.html#top-of-doc