Please read!!! If you do receive such a message, do not
open. Rootsweb takes every precaution possible to protect
subscribers.
Thanks, Pam Honaker List Admin
----Original Message Follows----
From: Tim Pierce <twp(a)rootsweb.com>
To: listowners-announce(a)rootsweb.com
Subject: Recent Virus Reports
Date: Thu, 16 Dec 1999 00:41:57 -0500
Hi, folks -
We've had a lot of reports tonight about a virus being passed
around on RootsWeb lists. I have looked into these reports
and it does NOT appear that the viruses have actually been
sent through our lists.
I've included a semi-technical explanation of what I have been
able to find out, for those of you who are curious. The only
important message here is that RootsWeb's lists are NOT the
source of recent virus reports.
What seems to be happening is that the current flock of viruses
do the following things when they infect a new computer:
* The virus sends a copy of itself to everyone in the
computer's address book;
* It forges its own return address to look like it was sent by
someone *else* in the address book;
* and it uses the Subject line from a message that was recently
sent from that machine.
So if an infected person sent mail to BUMBLEROTTER-L(a)rootsweb.com,
the virus might send out mail like this to someone else in the
victim's address book:
From: BUMBLEROTTER-L(a)rootsweb.com
To: joe(a)example.com
Subject: [BUMBLEROTTER] looking for Fred and Wilma Bumblerotter
<
http://stuart.messagemates.com/index.html>http://stuart.messagemates.c...
Hypercool Happy New Year 2000 funny programs and animations...
We attached our recent animation from this site in our mail ! Check it
out !
Even though the mail never was sent to RootsWeb, the return address
is forged to make it appear as if it came from us.
I will continue to work on figuring out if there is anything that
we can do about this; in the meantime, please assure any concerned
subscribers that subscribing to a RootsWeb list is not dangerous. :-)
--
Regards,
Tim Pierce
RootsWeb.com lead system admonsterator
and Chief Hacking Officer
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