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January 29, 2004

Email Problems

I got a polite query from a regular reader about some dodgy email apparently sent from my account with 'Test' as the subject. Not exactly what I would normally pick for a subject message....

I have spent the last 2 hours going through four months of email (all emails in and out of my server get archived) and it ain't there. That is the good news - it means that the mail (which appears to be virus laden) did not start from my server nor was it relayed through the server. The bad news is that some complete b*st*rd out there is sending out virus laden spam with my email address on it.

What can I do? Change email addresses again?

For the time being, I will respond to comments in the comments section instead of by email (say until 1st Feb) so if you receive an email from the gdaymate address in the next few days you can pretty much assume it is bogus and may contain a virus. If you know how to extract the headers, I would really appreciate you forwarding them to me (I can receive mail at that address but sending is disabled).

This may be related to the earlier comment-spam attacks (which appear to have originated from Australia).

Posted by Ozguru at January 29, 2004 12:01 AM

Comments

Whew! I opened my mail to find something like this as well. A return mail purportedly laden with a W32.Mydoom@MM.web virus to an address not in my address book and no trace of origin in my mail log. So, some b*st*rd is using a whole slew of real addresses to generate this SPAM. I am going to have my system swept again with a new virus checker though!

Posted by: The Gray Monk at January 29, 2004 12:01 AM

Jake also has a post on this and I thought I had better let everyone know the latest information: the virus is filling in any old email in the from field so check carefully who the mail is from before you get too upset. The bad news is that at least one of my readers is infected... As I said in a comment on Jakes site: "I am on the verge of hitting the next person who mentions windblows and security in the same sentence without a negative jibe".

Posted by: ozguru at January 29, 2004 12:01 AM

The BBC has some coverage of the end results of the virus.

Posted by: ozguru at January 29, 2004 12:01 AM

The Spam Virus Its about time someone called spam a virus. It clogs up machines, causes slowdown in traffic, and its quite often searching for personal information. Not only that, but it opens up your machine to attacks from other virii. I'm lucky...

Posted by: Peskie at January 29, 2004 12:01 AM