W32.Swen.A@mm virus

[Ken]

As far as I know my computer is free of this virus
(Norton's), but now every day I receive 5 or 6 email with
this virus attached, but is automatically deleted, how do I
stop these email from comming?

 

[RJK]

Change your ISP account and only release your real email address to close
firends and family, and even then, only to those that you trust are
competent enough on their PC to NOT let your new email address get
propogated around the webs emailing lists.
Then, set up a hotmail account for email that you wish to receive from
sources where you're unsure that your hotmail email address will not be
spread around the web.

Should you not wish to take the trouble and effort to do this, a partial
alternative solution is to use something like Mailwasher to exmamine email
awaiting collection from your ISP, and perhaps delete the unwanted ones
before "send and receiving" with your email program.

regards, Richard

 

[Rick Merrill]

Change your ISP account and only release your real email address to close
firends and family, and even then, only to those that you trust are
competent enough on their PC to NOT let your new email address get
propogated around the webs emailing lists.
Then, set up a hotmail account for email that you wish to receive from
sources where you're unsure that your hotmail email address will not be
spread around the web.

Good advice, but even that may not work if your chosen email 'name'
is similar to other names. The "senders" often will send 10000
emails to "ricknnnn" at every ISP they can think of!

Should you not wish to take the trouble and effort to do this, a partial
alternative solution is to use something like Mailwasher to exmamine email
awaiting collection from your ISP, and perhaps delete the unwanted ones
before "send and receiving" with your email program.

Another alternative is "Brightmail" which is provided as a free
service by Comcast - it saves me from over 50 spam per day.

Another approach is to find the people who are sending these
and turn them in to Microsoft for your quarter million dollar
reward !-) please. - RM

 

[Knack]

Good advice, but even that may not work if your chosen email 'name'
is similar to other names. The "senders" often will send 10000
emails to "ricknnnn" at every ISP they can think of!


Another alternative is "Brightmail" which is provided as a free
service by Comcast - it saves me from over 50 spam per day.

Another approach is to find the people who are sending these
and turn them in to Microsoft for your quarter million dollar
reward !-) please. - RM

I got rid of the virus on my PC, but that didn't get me off the mailing list
to my regular ISP account. I understand that SwenA obtains addresses from
newsgroups, among other places. That's how I got it. If you use a Hotmail
address for newsgroups, even without NOSPAMMING that address it should be
good enough, as Microsoft will filter SwenA out of your Inbox for you.
However, I foil my Hotmail address anyway.

So I still get a dozen SwenA messages coming to my regular ISP e-mail
account *every day* for the past 6 weeks since the Swen-A infection was
cleaned out in mid September. So I delete those messages without downloading
them via header inspect & delete features of the freeware utility Magic Mail
Monitor (MMM).
http://sourceforge.net/projects/mmm3/

For best results with MMM configuration, enter the IP address for your ISP's
mail server in the host name field (instead of typing in its its host name).
Otherwise, MMM has difficulty connecting to the mail server (bug in the
utility).

Better info and tips about SwenA at the newsgroup
alt.comp.anti-virus

 

[jdk]

Change your ISP account and only release your real email address to close
firends and family, and even then, only to those that you trust are
competent enough on their PC to NOT let your new email address get
propogated around the webs emailing lists.
Then, set up a hotmail account for email that you wish to receive from
sources where you're unsure that your hotmail email address will not be
spread around the web.

Should you not wish to take the trouble and effort to do this, a partial
alternative solution is to use something like Mailwasher to exmamine email
awaiting collection from your ISP, and perhaps delete the unwanted ones
before "send and receiving" with your email program.

regards, Richard

Swen is popular right now, its even attached to legitimate looking spam
(if there is such a thing). Trusted friends/relatives that honor your
request to *not* relay the days list of old jokes/cute pictures they
recieve to *every sucker* in their address book are hard to find. I have
sent email from this account to exactly two people, one a friend and one
a relative. I no longer even read the the barage of virus laden trash
the empty headed relative has caused to be inflicted upon me. You can
block a known addie but relayed garbage from left field is a harder nut
to crack.

John