Recent unusual spam messages

[Dennis Burnham]

Has anyone else seen the recent torrent of email spam from someone who is
sending out HTML emails that purport to be from Microsoft and have EXE
attachments that purport to be security patches? I have been getting these
at the rate of 50/day. I've written rules that immediately delete them, but
it's getting to be a concern that maybe my address book is infected with
something the way it happens to Windows users.

Also, I have been receiving messages that are apparently completely empty of
all data. There's nothing to view as source, there's no addressee, no
sender, no message subject or body. When I view headers, I can see:
"Date: January 1, 1904 12:00 am Subject: <no subject>"
I am able to delete these too, but it's very odd....

Dennis Burnham

 

[Mickey Stevens]

Yes, many people are seeing this junk mail. The Swen virus is what you have
been receiving. This page at Symantec Security Response explains in more
detail:
<http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/[email protected]>

Fortunately, you'll notice the virus does not affect Macs, so you aren't
sending out any junk mail. However, that doesn't stop the annoyance of
receiving so many viruses. Microsoft suggested the following to avoid junk
mail from posting to newsgroups:

Due to a recent increase in spam sent to posters in newsgroups, Microsoft
advises that newsgroup participants should consider avoiding posting to
newsgroups using their real email address. Microsoft is also committed to
continuing to address the issue of spam from a technological perspective.

To help avoid receiving unwanted messages (spam) in your regular e-mail
account, you may not want to include your regular e-mail address when you post
a question or reply to a post in a discussion group. Instead you may want to
do one of the following:

* Use a modified e-mail address: Use a different version of your e-mail
address that others will understand, but that spam tools can't automatically
pick up. For example, if your actual e-mail address is
"(e-mail address removed)", consider using a modified e-mail address such as:
"emailnameaccount.com.invalid",
emailname@REMOVE_CAPS_AND_INVALIDaccount.com.invalid, or
(e-mail address removed)_SPAM. In this case, the spam tools will send mail to
an invalid e-mail address, and others will know to exclude the "(removethis)"
when they send you e-mail. When you post a question or reply to a discussion
group, just enter your modified e-mail address in the appropriate box.

* Use a secondary e-mail account: Set up or use an e-mail account, such as a
Hotmail account, that is separate from your primary account for posting to
discussion groups. When you post a question or reply to a discussion group,
use your Hotmail account as your e-mail address.

I don't know why you're receiving blank messages too. It's not related to
the other junk mail you're receiving, I don't think.

 

[Tom Kirshbaum]

I don't know why you're receiving blank messages too. It's not related to
the other junk mail you're receiving, I don't think.

I¹m getting those too, along with the other ³Microsoft² messages. Fifty a
day, I¹d guess. They began right after my first post to the list using my
real return address. Now I know better.

It¹s maddening. I¹ve put SpamSieve to work on it. Has anyone had good
results with MessageFire?

Tom

 

[Guest]

But how does this help with regard to the "spam-bots" that already have our
valid email addresses? I've tried setting up rules to filter those that make
it into my inbox, but after setting up 20 or so rules, a percentage still
get through.
Is the only effective means to solve this dilemma to start fresh with a new
email address?

 

[Levent Mollamustafaoglu]

On 8/11/03 22:58, in article
BBD2D129.130%[email protected],
"(e-mail address removed)"

But how does this help with regard to the "spam-bots" that already have our
valid email addresses? I've tried setting up rules to filter those that make
it into my inbox, but after setting up 20 or so rules, a percentage still
get through.
Is the only effective means to solve this dilemma to start fresh with a new
email address?

Indeed I had to get a new mail address to get rid of this. My old address is
still valud and keeps getting the messages. Although my junk filters catch
them up, it is still annoying to receive all these messages, since it takes
some time, even on my fast ADSL line.

 

[Gnarlodious]

Entity Levent Mollamustafaoglu spoke thus:

My old address is
still valid and keeps getting the messages. Although my junk filters catch
them up, it is still annoying to receive all these messages, since it takes
some time, even on my fast ADSL line.

I have an Applescript that makes the process of forwarding the spam to a
reporting system as simple as selecting a script from the script menu. If
you want it let me know.

--Gnarlie

 

[Brian]

I'd like to know where to get that script.
Cheers,
Bob

 

[Lode Goukens]

this virus does seem to affect Entourage.
I had already two crashes and lost several days worth of e-mail and Notes
I get the alerts and on Entourage the messages are different from Mail.
I get over 100 viruses a day.

Any suggestions?

 

[indago]

this virus does seem to affect Entourage.
I had already two crashes and lost several days worth of e-mail and Notes
I get the alerts and on Entourage the messages are different from Mail.
I get over 100 viruses a day.

Any suggestions?

I have Entourage and have used it extensively until I started getting the
spam and virus Emails. It took forever to download the Email with the 146K
attachments, although I never opened the attachments. I stopped using the
Entourage and went right to Earthlink, my ISP. The Email went there first,
and then downloaded onto my hard disk when I selected to download mail
through Entourage. At the Earthlink site, the Email does not download onto
the hard drive, and Earthlink has a virus eliminator to filter out the virus
in Emails so that they are only 1K. Go to your ISP that handles your Email
online and don't open Entourage anymore until this spam and virus thing
passes. Eventually the one who created this spam thing will be caught and
heavily fined and put in jail for awhile.

 

[Bernard REY]

Lode Goukens wrote :

this virus does seem to affect Entourage.

Which virus do you mean? As far as I know there has not been any Mac-active
virus around lately. If you mean the pseudo-Microsoft patches that are being
sent to the newsgroup users, they won't harm your Mac (but could be very
dangerous on a PC). I have received tons of them and never had any problem
using Entourage (or any other soft).

I had already two crashes and lost several days worth of e-mail and Notes

This must have another cause. Did you "Rebuilt your database" recently? This
you can do holding the "Option" key down when launching Entourage.

I get the alerts and on Entourage the messages are different from Mail.

Which alerts? Do you mean that Entourage is bringing up alerts or do you
mean you are receiving alert messages? In this casn, the differences you can
see between Entourage and Mail are most probably due to different settings
in the way the two soft display the pictures.

I get over 100 viruses a day.
Any suggestions?

Yes, please do not show your real address when posting in a NewsGroup (or
anywhere else on the Internet). If you are using Entourage, create a new
account (from the "Tools" menu), identical to your usual account, but modify
the "E-mail address", using something like "lodeATcruxDOTbe", or
"(e-mail address removed)" or why not "(e-mail address removed)"...

I think you'll still receive some of those messages, but it should decrease
in time. And you can, of course, simply change your email address, but that
isn't always quite an easy choice...