Wow, someone has a virus

[heySkippy]

Both my wife and I have been getting an extraordinary number of emails the last couple days that I assume are virus laden. They've got subjects like "Your Password" or "Registration Confirmation" or "Your email was blocked" and of course they all have an attachment.

I opened a few of the zip file attachments and they've all got .exe files inside and when I open them I don't see any clear text so no clue what it is.

Anyway, is there something new going around or is this some friend of ours that caught an old one? It's been a while since I've seen this many.

edit to add - we are both Mac people so that's why I don't know for sure what this is.

 

[djskyy]

I opened a few of the zip file attachments and they've all got .exe files inside and when I open them I don't see any clear text so no clue what it is.

....most likely, you probably got a virus now....Never open any attachments from anyone that you don't know... :wink:

 

[heySkippy]

....most likely, you probably got a virus now....Never open any attachments from anyone that you don't know... :wink:

Nah, we're okay. EXE files won't run on our computers so I know I'm okay opening them with a text editor to see if there's any readable text. I've found sometimes I can tell which one it is by what's in the file.

 

[hlweyl]

Why not just delete the email and adjust your SPAM settings?

 

[NeoNSX]

Golden Rule of Avoiding Email Viruses: "If in doubt, DELETE".
It's as simple as that.

 

[ss_md]

Golden Rule of Avoiding Email Viruses: "If in doubt, DELETE".
It's as simple as that.

Neos, "golden rule" for avoiding viruses is your second defense against e-mail viruses. Good virus detection software is your first defense against nasty ass viruses - even on a MAC. Don't think for a moment that just because you are using a MAC that you aren't vulnerable to viruses. Better safe than sorry! Never - ever, open unknown e-mails!!

 

[heySkippy]

I don't know that much about Windows but I do know my own stuff quite well. We can't be infected by any exe/bat/scr/pif file, it's impossible. We don't have virus protection because there are no OS X viruses. None. There might be someday but when that day comes I'll hear about it and do the right thing.

I can open all the virus attachments I want and have been doing it for years. I use a text editor and search for plain text strings for clues as to what and where the file came from.

Our spam filters are catching most of these new emails but not all - no biggie. The reason I was asking about this latest bunch is that there have been an enormous increase in the number of them. I just wondered if it's part of some large general outbreak or simply someone we know who's got themselves infected.

Really, I'm not trying to start a Mac/Win/Linux debate. Been there, done that, tired of it. Just reporting a very large spike in what seems to be virus activity.

 

[1TITENSX]

I'm getting these emails to...their quite annoying

 

[Arshad]

Yeah it's a variant of the Sober worm that was released Monday night. Thank God I'm running OSX so I don't have to deal with this BS either. BTW, did you upgrade to Tiger yet?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4512421.stm

 

[heySkippy]

BTW, did you upgrade to Tiger yet?

Not yet. The local store has a 10.4 Family Pack waiting on me, I just haven't got down there yet to pick it up.

Have you upgraded? How do you like it? I'm looking forward to the update since I've heard from a couple sources that I can expect some performance improvement on my old G4/400.

 

[Arshad]

Have you upgraded? How do you like it?

Yeah, our company necessarily works very closely with Apple since we design the graphics subsystem, so we get the builds pretty much from day 1. I think it has some FANTASTIC features. Not just flashy "hey look at that cool ripple effect on the desktop", but useful things that increase my everyday productivity like Spotlight and automator and virtual folders. Because of the large number of 'under the hood' changes in the kernel, a few things have broken, notably any VPN software making use of berkeley protocol stacks. I've been running Tiger for quite some time now, and other than the VPN problems I haven't run into any major issues. I would highly recommend upgrading.

 

[heySkippy]

Hmmm Arshad, it's really nice to meet you! :biggrin:

I've been a Mac guy since '84 and have never owned a Windows (or DOS for that matter) computer. I do use them at work of course but never in any kind of single-user or recreational setting. I've always had someone else to intercept viruses/spam/etc there.

I'll probably do the upgrade this weekend. The only thing I've heard that might affect me is some people having trouble with iChat and I can take that chance (can always fall back on Fire for IM).

 

[Arshad]

Very nice to meet you as well BodyPainter! I started on the Mac bandwagon a bit late (1995), previously having been on the Amiga bandwagon Like you, I've had a real distaste for Windows and the PC architecture in general, although I have owned various PC's over the years. These days my P4 sees very little use, with most of my work being done on my PBG4. Given how far behind Longhorn is versus Tiger only cements this further.

Working at ATI is awesome since we have access to prerelease CPU's, machines, OS's, etc. Not to mention that we get to directly influence the design of things like Quartz, DVD playback, OpenGL, etc.

 

[NeoNSX]

Working at ATI is awesome since we have access to prerelease CPU's, machines, OS's, etc. Not to mention that we get to directly influence the design of things like Quartz, DVD playback, OpenGL, etc.

Ahh... this explains why I hear nothing but problems with ATI drivers: you boyz are too busy playing with new toys! teasing.


i dont care what anyone says... Mac logic is screwed up at times. why would you drag a cd onto the trash can to eject it? this simply makes no sense.

 

[heySkippy]

why would you drag a cd onto the trash can to eject it? this simply makes no sense.

That was never the "official" way to unmount a floppy (and later a CD), but a shortcut to the "Put Away" command (CMD-Y) that no one could remember to use. The "Eject" command left a ghost of the disk on your desktop and this is how you copied floppy to floppy in those days.

It wasn't supposed to make sense as such, it was just a quick way to get a floppy out. I don't think it was ever even documented in a manual. I agree that it was counterintuitive but it sure was handy to have.

Of course it's been years since any Mac had a floppy drive now and every keyboard has an eject button so it's kind of forgotten relic of the past.

 

[Arshad]

Of course it's been years since any Mac had a floppy drive now and every keyboard has an eject button so it's kind of forgotten relic of the past.

True. And when you do take removable media or mounted drives and move it to the trash, it changes to an "Eject" icon so it's clear that you're ejecting it and not deleting it.

If anything, I think it's more intuitive than the Windows method of ejecting removable media. On the Mac, you can hit Cmd-E to eject it, or hit the physical eject button on the keyboard, or click on the eject icon beside the volume in the finder window, etc.

 

[heySkippy]

How do you eject a removable device under Win2k? When I went on my big road trip last week, I took a Dell laptop from work along for the ride. It's primary purpose was so I could offload pictures from my camera and then upload them to my website while I was on the road.

Anyway, I was happy when the computer recognized the camera and mounted it as an external disk (just as my Mac does). I dragged the pictures to a folder on the desktop, deleted the pictures on the card, and did a right-click eject on the camera in an Explorer window.

Nothing happened so finally I would turn off the camera and get a pop-up telling me I'd improperly unmounted the device. Well, duh - I tried. Why didn't it work?