Is this a virus - startup.com & startup.pif

[Greg]

I received 2 emails from an invalid address today, sent to a short
list of addresses which would all be in a friend of mine's address
book.

The subject of both emails was "Startup". The first message had the
message body "Very funny" and the attachment "startup.com". The second
had no message body, and the attachment "startup.pif".

I didn't download the attachments, but hotmail's antivirus reported no
virus detected (yeah, I trust that). I've tried searching a McAfee &
AVG's site for info on "startup.com" or "startup.pif", but I've heard
nothing.

Can anyone confirm my suspicions that this is a virus?

 

[Jason]

I received 2 emails from an invalid address today, sent to a short
list of addresses which would all be in a friend of mine's address
book.

The subject of both emails was "Startup". The first message had the
message body "Very funny" and the attachment "startup.com". The second
had no message body, and the attachment "startup.pif".

I didn't download the attachments, but hotmail's antivirus reported no
virus detected (yeah, I trust that). I've tried searching a McAfee &
AVG's site for info on "startup.com" or "startup.pif", but I've heard
nothing.

Can anyone confirm my suspicions that this is a virus?

Always, when you get something that looks like an executable; it is likely
to be of ill origin. You could send it away to AVG ( or many of the other
vendors ) for analysis.

 

[Greg]

Always, when you get something that looks like an executable; it is likely
to be of ill origin. You could send it away to AVG ( or many of the other
vendors ) for analysis.

Yeah, I know it's very suspicious. I was hoping that it had already
been reported to "the AV community" (assuming such a thing exists, and
that this would be the newsgroup for it if it did), and was a
confirmed virus.

As for submitting the email to an AV vendor, I went to AVG's website
and couldn't find a way to submit a suspected virus. If anyone knows
how to do so, please let me know.