Virus Warnings? [Re: Mail Delivery System (DANGER: Potential virus content!)]

[Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie>]

On Wed, 28 Jan 2004, Marco Contenti wrote:

> Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 18:35:24 +0100
> From: Marco Contenti <m contenti libero it>
> Reply-To: dia-list gnome org
> To: dia-list gnome org
> Subject: Re: Mail Delivery System (DANGER: Potential virus content!)
>
> Steffen please check your computer!

> The message you (or someone/something using your e-mail as sender) sent to
> the Dia list contained a zipped file "body.cmd", which isn't really a

It is extremely unlikely that Steffen actually sent that message as most
recent viruses spoof the From: header and randomly spam the addresses
in the users addressbook and sometimes in a particularly annoying fashion
manages to get a whole list.

If the list owners would like to ban HTML email and automatically bounce
any mails with the MIME content-type:application/x-ms-download or even
better ban any email sent using Microsoft Outlook* I certainly wouldn't
mind.

> Windows cmd script, but turned out to be a small Win32 executable without
> version info.
> Despite my NAV updated a few days ago didn't find anything, this really
> smells like a virus!

Any .exe .com and most .zip files are viruses, no one should be emailing
.exe files.  I usually urge people to send me a link rather than large
attachments.

If in doubt I'll fire off a quick mail and ask for a description.

> Anyway, just opening the message won't be harmful if you don't open the
> attachment, unzip it and open its contents (I wonder whether under some
> unsafe mail client configurations all this can go automatically...).
> Of course all this applies to Windows only. Linux users are OK.

Sincerely

Alan Horkan
http://advogato.org/person/AlanHorkan/

* realistically of course I understand this is impractical because some
people are forced to use Outlook.