Is this a virus?

[Michael Conrad]

Hello,

I am inquiring for a friend (who has no anti-virus protection). She
says she has been receiving 100's of returned e-mails everyday, but hasn't
sent any out. They seem to be to random addresses, domestic and
international, etc. Could this be a virus?

Thanks,

Mike

 

[David Candy]

Yes but on someone else's machine.

 

[Peter]

Tell her to install a virus scanner first:
http://www.grisoft.com/us/us_dwnl_free.php

Gosh, I can't understand why someone doesn't use one...

Good luck

 

[DL]

Lets see if I understand;
On the internet and no AV app???
Presumabley Firewall not activated either??
Answer: Plain dumb!!!!!!
David

 

[RJK]

Connecting to the internet without first settings up ones defences -
firewall - ant-virus etc. is simply daft.

"Could this be a virus?" ummm, what else could it be ...let me think ......

I suspect that this particular PC will be full of virsus - trojans etc.
spyware, scumware, malware - homepage hijackers and goodness know what else
etc.
First thing to do is boot from a Norton Internet security cd-rom and let it
do it's thing ....after backing up all user created data of course ....

regards, Richard

 

[RJK]

BwahahahahahahahahahahahaROFL !!!

regards, Richard


Yes but on someone else's machine.

 

[David Candy]

They're not needed. I don't run AV programs and I've never been infected. That's 13 years on platfornms that can be infected (ie Dos/Windows). There were no viruses on the mainframe, minis, or scientific computers prior to me converting in 1990.

 

[Bastet]

They're not needed. I don't run AV programs and I've never been
infected. That's 13 years on platfornms that can be infected (ie
Dos/Windows). There were no viruses on the mainframe, minis, or
scientific computers prior to me converting in 1990.

And how did you know?!

 

[Peter]

They're not needed. I don't run AV programs and I've never been infected.
That's 13 years on platfornms that can be infected (ie Dos/Windows). There
were no > viruses on the mainframe, minis, or scientific computers prior to
me converting in 1990.

So because I never had a car accident, I don't need to wear seat belts and I
never need to lock my house because people never broke in?
Sorry, but that's the logic of an ape.

 

[Peter]

So because I never had a car accident, I don't need to wear seat belts and I
never need to lock my house because people never broke in?
Sorry, but that's the logic of an ape.

 

[RJK]

I'm shocked ! I can't believe what you just said ! If I could remember the
name of it I'd HURL an example virus at you. The one, ( that appeared
....was it ...a year or two ago), that could do horrible things to your PC by
simply viewing it in OE's preview pane. ...and as Bastet just said, "How
would you know" ...LOL

regards, Richard


They're not needed. I don't run AV programs and I've never been infected.
That's 13 years on platfornms that can be infected (ie Dos/Windows). There
were no viruses on the mainframe, minis, or scientific computers prior to me
converting in 1990.

 

[DL]

Personally I set up two pc's recently, ie took them out of the box and
started up, In the time taken to set up the internet connection and activate
the Firewall both were infected
David

They're not needed. I don't run AV programs and I've never been infected.
That's 13 years on platfornms that can be infected (ie Dos/Windows). There
were no viruses on the mainframe, minis, or scientific computers prior to me
converting in 1990.

 

[David Candy]

Because only idiots get infected. Let me see. Lets call route of infection vectors.

Now I once bought a 2nd hand computer with both an infected and faulty hard drive. Sys fixed that. Debug allowed me to look.

The first two vectors viruses used were boot sectors (which windows is immune to, sort of). The defense against this is not to boot with an infected floppy in the drive. Later BIOSs offered a feture to not try to boot from floppy. The second is file infection. Don't swap executable files and one can't get infected.

Then we had macro viruses. Again at the time it was not to open documents that one didn't create. Then I wrote a program that prevented these from running (ok I suppose that counts a an AV program in part). Then MS built in the same feature in Word 2000 (mine was released for 95 and written for Ver 6)

Then we had email/web vectors. Setting OE to restricted zone solved OE's problems. With IE it requires you to click something.

Then worms came about. If you are correctly configured they aren't a threat.

If in doubt I examine the offending code (and I get sent lots of viruses everyday). If someone else is infected and send me a new virus I run the virus in a sandbox to examine it's behaviour.

The point is stupidity/ignorance/gluttony gets people infected (often all three).

 

[RJK]

After setting up Internet connections, you didn't HAVE to connect to the web
before installing/activating web security software etc. ! ...but, then, you
learnt that the hard way :-(

regards, Richard

 

[Battleax]

Personally I set up two pc's recently, ie took them out of the box and
started up, In the time taken to set up the internet connection and activate
the Firewall both were infected
David

Facinating! How exactly does this happen?

 

[David Candy]

I grew up in a house, in a city, that was never locked. A better analogy may be one ties one's car to a telegraph pole to prevent one from speeding, or one can just not speed.

 

[David Candy]

It won't do nothing if you send it to me, I have OE in the restricted zone. Understand. If one's computer is correctly configured then one is almost immune. Be aware that no virus gets on my computer (except by my choice when I'm working out what you should do to disinfect you). Therefore an AV program has nothing to do.

People that get infected usually use AV software, that means they reley on the AV software rather than correct configuration A new virus comes along, the AV companies haven't seen it yet, they get infected

Tell me, if you are a standalone computer, do you have NetBIOS enabled over the TCP/IP connection. I don't. Yet most seem to. That is a major flaw.

 

[David Candy]

They refuse to configure their internet as an internet connection. Thus port 135 is left open. There is some obscure bug (which actually got used) that overruns the data buffer and allowing any data to be put in memory, in this case program code.

Everyone wants programs to do security, but they won't configure their computer.

 

[Rayn]

Hello,

I am inquiring for a friend (who has no anti-virus protection). She
says she has been receiving 100's of returned e-mails everyday, but hasn't
sent any out. They seem to be to random addresses, domestic and
international, etc. Could this be a virus?

Thanks,

Mike

Well, duh. It *could* be a virus, it could almost be funny, however it
is be ludicrous to run without a av. Esp.when free av programs are
available.

Jan

 

[Plato]

And how did you know?!

hehe true, unless you double check you couldn't make the "never
infected" statement. I think Mr. Spock would agree.