All List members,
There has been a rash of emails with attachment going around. Do not
download any of these email that came thru with file attachment. It may or
may not be a virus file. I have been told other rootsweb maillists have been
hit as well, so please DELETE EMAILS WITH ATTATCHMENTS immediately.
While Rootsweb cannot forward attatchments, these current viruses get into
the listmember's email program. It then reads the "FROM" or
"SENDER"
section of incoming emails and automatically sends itself (in various forms)
to the sender of the email. I got dozens of them when I sent out the test
messages.
Again, I urge you to run your virus protection software ALL THE TIME, and do
specific checks for unfamiliar files. Contact your favorite software store
(or walmart, etc) to purchase virus software and/or go to
www.housecall.com
and have them check your system.
In the past year, some VERY sophisticated worms and trojans have sprung up.
That may not mean much to some of you, but here is the laymans version.
These programs can download themselves, copy and send themselves, and in
some cases allow other users to use and access your computer (trojans).
THis is especially a problem for cablemodem users or those of us who leave
ours on all the time. Simply logging off WILL NOT PREVENT ANOTHER OUTSIDE
PERSON FORM GETTING INTO YOUR COMPUTER. It MUST be powered off to prevent
someone who has implanted a trojan from using your machine.
Basically, if your phone line or cable line is plugged in, the outside user
uses his keyboard to use your computer (the trojan creates a sort of doorway
to allow him in) and from there he can access anything you have stored.
Snow white and similar email viruses are not trojans, but the software
duplicates the virus and sends it to your friends via your address book or
incoming email. Worms are nasty fellows who download themselves then delete
or write over all your stored files.
This sounds pretty bad, but with reasonable care and good software to fix
and prevent viruses, its manageable.
If you have questions email me privately please. I am sending this to the
list because several of 'us list admins' had a chat the other day about this
problem and there will be a big push to get everyone informed.
Thanks for your attention and cooperation!
Robin
Can-Saskatchewan List Administrator
CHAMP List Administrator
Robin Pyatt Bellamy
Toronto, ON, Canada
Find all my genealogy (and lots of other stuff) at
http://home.primus.ca/~triedit
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