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MG MG Y Type - They'r at it again

To All – The slime balls and sleaze bags are at it again, this time turning loose the MYDOOM or NOVARG virus on the computer world. It is time to circle the wagons and protect ourselves once again. If you haven’t already done it, go out and get a good anti-virus program, install and run it on your computer and set it up to scan incoming and outgoing e-mail as well as check and get automatic updates every time you are on line. You should also set it up to scan your entire computer for viruses periodically (my computer is scanned once a week). Whatever the cost of the program, it is cheap compared to having to get your computer professionally disinfected if your computer should fall victim to the virus. Even if you do have virus protection on your computer, now is the time to be extra careful of which e-mails you open. If there is nothing in the subject line or a hokey subject line or one that just says Hi, especially if it is from someone you don’t know – dump it! Even if it has a name you recognize, but it has a subject line that is out of context for that person – dump it! If you dump something that was legitimate and it is important enough, the sender will get in touch with you someway. In the same vain, when you send an e-mail, word the subject line such that it doesn’t sound strange to the recipient.

While you are at it, go into your e-mail program preferences and turn off the automatic collection of e-mail addresses in your address book. In Netscape click on preferences in the edit menu, expand Mail & Newsgroups and click on Addressing, then go to the section that is marked Email Address Collection and uncheck the box that says Add email addresses to my: … If you are using some other e-mail program, you will have to search for a similar preference setting and ensure that your program doesn’t add the e-mail address of everyone you send anything to into your address book. If this function was turned on, you might want to go into your address book or the address book that is labeled collected addresses and clear out all addresses that you don’t recognize or don’t need. Why do this? If your computer does become infected with this virus, within the first 30 seconds or less, the virus will duplicate itself and send itself out attached to an e-mail under the name of everyone listed in your address books. It additionally sends itself to everyone listed in your address books. To give you an idea how this works, today I received an e-mail with the virus from Little British Car Co. and from myself! Now I know that my computer has not been infected and I am sure the Jeff Zorn of LBC has his computer set up to avoid infection, which means that somewhere, some bodies computer with LBCs and my e-mail addresses was infected and a whole lot of people have received infected e-mails under LBCs and my e-mail address. Which brings up another item, if you receive an infected e-mail from an e-mail address of someone you recognize, don’t pick up a club and go hunting for that individual to get even. It is almost guaranteed that they didn’t send the infected e-mail.

One other thing that you can do to help stem the tide of dangerous things coming into our computers via e-mail. If you receive a “virus warning” from a well meaning friend, especially one that says that this is a virus that can’t be stopped by the anti-virus programs and your computer may already be infected and here is how to check your computer… consider that this may be a hoax that your friend is unwittingly sending out. These hoaxes usually have you going into your computer files (following explicit instructions) and removing the “bad” file. One of these hoaxes that come to mind is the Teddy Bear virus and the hoax has you remove a file that is proceeded with the icon of a teddy bear. Anytime you get one of these warnings, you should check the one of the following links to see if it is a hoax that is meant to have you self mutilate your computer HOAXBUSTERS Home Page or Computer Virus Myths home page.

Sorry that this has gone on so long, but I think that if we all work at it, we can at least minimize the amount of disruption among those of us who want spend our time working on and driving our MGs.

Cheers - Dave


David DuBois

100% endorse Dave's comments there.

If you do not want to pay for your AV protection software have a look at www.avast.com and look at their product avast4home. It is not a bad product and will, while you are online check for new AV updates and load them into your PC for you. I have had several good reports about these people, although I personally remain committed to Sophos AV as the best there is - speaking as a Systems Administrator.

Paul
Paul Barrow

Duplicate from MGB General:

Well said. I agree with every word. Antivirus software is relatively cheap. As always, I recommend Norton Antivirus highly but there are plenty of others out there and even free ones if you are really short on cash.

If you don't have antivirus software, run an online scan before installing it. Even if you do have antivirus software, this is a good way to be sure a virus has not slipped by and damaged your antivirus software. You can scan online for free at this link:

http://securityresponse.symantec.com/

Halfway down the page, click "Online Virus and Security Check"

A new window will appear. Click "Virus Detection"

Any boxes that ask permission to install a utility are safe, so click "Yes".

Safety Fast, and virus-free!
Steve Simmons

I thought this was car BBS not a PC one.

Filling up this BBS with non car garbage is just as bad as receiving it attached to an email. IT is stuff I and most other readers don't want or need.

Lets get back to using the BBS for its intended purpose
please.
Phil Stafford

This is an MG BBS, and it is used with computers. Therefore posting about a potentially deadly virus to your computer is quite acceptable in my opinion.

The Y-Type forum is not very busy, so it's very easy to simply skip the topics you don't care about. Besides, I feel this is not just a stark, boring tech-info-only place. It is a meeting place for enthusiasts from around the world to make friends and shoot the sh*t.

Just my two cents.
Steve Simmons

Whether the BBS is busy or not I feel is fairly irrelevant. What matters is the provision of a service.

Many owners and drivers of Y Types are not particularly geeky and are not desperately tuned into looking at Personal Computer (PC) websites I'll warrant. Indeed, you could say, the very reason they come to this particular oasis is to get away from all the crap that goes around. However, burying one's head in the sand does not make the problem go away, but increases the vulerablity to attack in many cases.

I have personally had much encouraging feedback about the times when we have warned about viruses and hoaxes as otherwise the less geeky of us would have not been aware of some of the potential pitfalls and problems, and moreover, unaware of the possible solutions and real protection that is avaialble. Indeed in some cases, genuine assistance has been able to be offered to many.

None of us would want the BBS to become only a message board for viruses etc. just as we do not want it to become only an extension of eBay. However, there are, from time to time, items that I spot, and others, where I think these items may be of genuine interest to others.

We are fortunate to live in a democracy and the BBS gives you the opportunity to say what you want, about what you want - so long as it is not insulting, rude, defamatory, pornographic or in any way racist or derogatory of any religious belief or faith - long live the BBS.

Paul
Paul Barrow

My virus protection (McAfee) tells me I don't have a virus, but I am getting lots of returned e-mails with topics I know nothing about that were sent to e-mail addresses I don't even know.

I have also had a warning sent to me that I am sending out a virus.

Seems I have not been hit with a virus but my address has been hijacked, and used to distribute one. Beware!
Tony SLATTERY

Tony, It doesn't mean a thing. Everyone is getting the same thing right now all over the world. It's simply the way these viri work. They use "address spoofing" which makes the email appear to come from one source when it actually came from another. It would be a good idea to run an online scan just to be safe, but most likely you are fine.

See my above post for instructions on running an online scan.
Steve Simmons

Tony

Do not worry unduly. If your McAfee AV is up to date you are OK. This particular email is malicious and actually is generated by someone possing to be you trying to send out viruses ... on your behalf with your address as the "return to"path - hence why you are finding out about them. Just delete them as they come in. It is annoying to be used in this way, but there is nothing you can do about it so don't worry. Steve is correct.

Paul
Paul Barrow

After my BSF-spannerset the computer/Internet is the second most important tool; I use BBS to gather knowledge about the car-/MG-/Y-hobby, anything remotely connected to it is interesting.
For me this virus-information is very welcome as I entered the 21th century only recently by installing a home-computer with Internet-connection but without proper virus-protection last month.
Willem van der Veer

This thread was discussed between 28/01/2004 and 30/01/2004

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