What the virus does is looks through the browser cache and picks up any
emails from any of the html documents on their computer system.
So if they visited your page once, passed by the state mailing list once,
passed by a list you have posted to, your email is in their cache and
therefore subject to being hit.
I also help out on a site for scouts and on every page there is
abuse(a)scouts.com when the Sir Cam virus hit, I had to shut down that email
address plus the guest book of the site because the virus was emailing out
of the browser cache.
It was emailing abuse(a)scouts.com as well as all the people in that guest
book, which in turn would email abuse@ and all the people in that
guestbook...etc etc.
It was wild fire.
My suggestion is to get a good virus protection program in place on your
system and don't open ANYTHING with attachments unless someone mails you
ahead of time to let you know they are sending it.
Even when researchers send me stuff to add to the sites, I always send an
email to them asking them if they sent me an attachment before I go ahead
and open it.
Better to be safe than sorry.
Because I know if I was a few days without my computer because of a virus, I
would have to start making myself a tombstone...it would kill me <G>
If you are going to alert the sender, do so in an entirely different message
then a reply to the one they sent you.
Many viruses are embedded in the HTML of an email message and you can be
spreading the viruses even further by hitting reply.
Ellen-
Waukesha & Manitowoc County CC
From: Linda Schwartz <lschwartz(a)mindspring.com>
Reply-To: WIGEN-L(a)rootsweb.com
To: WIGEN-L(a)rootsweb.com
Subject: Re: [WIGEN-L] This week's virus
Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2001 14:53:22 -0500
Debbie,
The reason they bounce back when you "reply" is that the virus has placed a
_ (underscore) in front of their return address.
Here's info I received from Andrew Billinghurst at Rootsweb:
Underscored - email address is when you are seeing a response from
the person's mail box, and you will see a subject line
Non-underscored - when the email address has come from a web page and
this page is in the person's browser cache. Obviously this would
also explain the lack of subject line.
The oddity here is that I see the underscore but no address line ... it
always comes as "re:" and nothing else. Few, if any, of the infected
emails are coming from someone on one of my mail lists. And they seem to be
people that I don't remember ever emailing so don't know why I'd be in
their address book.
I'm to the point now of blocking some of these people from emailing me
since I keep getting repeated non-messages with viruses "embedded."
Linda
At 10:03 AM 11/27/2001 -0800, you wrote:
>Linda:
>
>I have tried a couple of times to respond to the email address given in
>the message, but it bounces back to me as undeliverable.
>
>Don't think it is coming from the website. These emails usually start
>from someone's address book on their computer email program.
>
>Debbie
>County Coordinator
>Pierce County WIGenWeb Project
>http://www.rootsweb.com/~wipierce/
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Linda Schwartz
> To: WIGEN-L(a)rootsweb.com
> Sent: Tuesday, November 27, 2001 7:28 AM
> Subject: [WIGEN-L] This week's virus
>
>
> Is anyone else being bombarded by the new Badtrans-B virus this week?
>
http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.badtrans.b@mm.html
>
> It's getting so I hate to check my mail - there's several new messages
>with
> viruses every time. Because there's no subject line, it appears it's
> picking up my email address from my web sites.
>
> Does it do any good to notify the people whose computer's are sending
>them?
>
> Linda
> Dunn & Douglas Co
>
>
> ==== WIGEN Mailing List ====
> Celebrate Wisconsin!
> Visit the Vilas County WIGenWeb Project Pages
>
http://www.rootsweb.com/~wivernon/
>
>
>
>==== WIGEN Mailing List ====
>Celebrate Wisconsin!
>Visit the Trempealeau County WIGenWeb Project Pages
>http://www.rootsweb.com/~witrempe/
==== WIGEN Mailing List ====
Celebrate Wisconsin!
Visit the Vilas County WIGenWeb Project Pages
http://www.rootsweb.com/~wivernon/
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