Warning: Possible New Web Fraud-Scam-Virus Attempts

[NightOwl]

For the past two weeks, I've been  getting e-mails from people I never heard of.  Actually opened the first one--it  wanted me to download an attached  file.  The messsage in the body of the letter  said:  "you in sex pic?  I deleted it without downloadiong right away and  have  since been deleting all of the subsequent stuff from "unfamiiar" names without opening them.  Some come to my inbox and others to my bulk mail folder.

By the way, these names are carefully chosen to sound non-threatening and legitimate, as though they might actually be from someone you know now  or might have known before.

Just as  worrisome is that I have  received a  half-dozen e-mails from "mailer daemon" lately claiming that e-mails I sent to several people had been returned as not having valid  web addresses.  I have also received two notices from "mailadministrator"  In all cases, these returns are about e-mails I NEVER sent to people I NEVER heard of, and in the latter, I was advised to reply to a certain mailbox if I believed this delivery  failure was in error.

I never send ANY "reply to all"  group e-mails unless I  personally know everyone on the list I am sending something to.  So I KNOW I have not tried to contact the people whose names/addresses were given in these "e-mail  failure" to deliver messages.  I am starting to automatically delete ALL messages of any kind which I dont recognize.  

I strongly suspect that these mysterious messages are an attempt at some kind of scam or virus infection and  thought in case  some of you might be getting similar junk, this imformation might be useful.

[B-flat]

Almost the same thing has been happening in my email.  It's because of the wonderful virus going around that is actually a "spoofed email" attempting to make it look like you sent the email or that it is a legitimate email.  One of these viruses is the Netsky virus, and there are plenty of others.  Many of these viruses hijack your email address that is resident in another computer and send out the emails unbeknownst to the owner of that computer.  That's why it is very important that everyone have virus software on their computer that checks for updates daily.  McAfee is a good one.  It caught and deleted all of the viruses in several of these so called emails coming in from people I don't know and a few I did know.  I run a thorough scan from time to time also.  There have incidents of people calling up the "sender" and giving a few "go rounds" when in fact the real sender was probably not known. :Z

[labontefan]

B-Flat is right. You don't have to have the virus on your computer for e-mails to be sent out in your name. The newer viruses not only send out e-mails to everyone in someone's address book, they send out e-mails that appear to come FROM everyone in someone's address book.

Since we get so much e-mail at work, we have extensive virus protection that seldom lets anything through. However, we frequently get autoresponder messages like the ones you described saying that someone received an e-mail from us with an attached virus. The e-mail didn't come from us. It came from someone who has our e-mail address in their files and who has the virus on their computer.

I've gotten several e-mails lately with attached files that were obviously viruses. Fortunately, my virus protection (I have Norton Internet Security which includes Norton Anti-Virus plus a firewall) recognized them as such and deleted the file before it even allowed the e-mail through.

With all the garbage out there that people try to send to your computer, it doesn't make sense not to have good, up-to-date virus protection. I've used McAfee and Norton both and would recommend either. The price is definitely reasonable when you consider the potential damage they can prevent.

[tlhdoc]

Not a virus, but a scam email I was sent the other day had this in the subject.  "Your credit card will be $22.99 per month".  The email said that my 3 free child pornography moves will be mailed shortly and if I want to cancel send all of the details of my credit card.  I wonder how many people fell for that email.  I reported it to the PA attorney generals office.

[wiininkwe]

I've been getting some of the same things.  I even got a few that weren't even addressed to me, but to some email addy I never heard of.  How would that end up in my inbox??  I don't open them either, but it really p***** me off to think about people whose idea of a good time is just to screw up some stranger's day.  What makes them tick?  Do ya think their moms think they are nice people?  
T

[birol]

I hate them e-mail skimmers and spammers and such ! They used my address (The one people know here) to send child Pornography to people (my adress was the from address), including myself !  I contected yahoo to complain and told them what was going on so that I would not get into trouble myself or get my account deleted. They couldn't do anything to the person(s) sending it I guess but assured me that they knew it wasn't from me ! That was VERY scary !

Recently I downloded a movie from somewhere I thought to be safe (ok, no lecturing please ) and I got a trojan (I believe) from an AVI file ! The moment I pointed at the file it kicked in ! Continuous internet acceess initiated ! NA said my system was clean, spybot cleaners etc all said I have no problems ! But I sure had problems ! Took me two clean reinstalls to recover ! (After the first one I touched the file to delete it and it reactivated )

Be very very careful what you keep on the computer you access the internet ! I had my tax returns (The only really good stuff) and I am now afraid that my SIN is now leaked and in the hands of a fraud artist who is getting millions of dollars of loans on my name  

[B-flat]

There's one scam claiming that a larger amount of something like $149 is owed and to supply your credit card info.  Why on earth does the scammer think that will work?  Also, the 419 type scam, sometimes referred to as the Nigerian Scam,  is where some so and so wants to deposit millions into your bank account because of some royal family member in Africa or wherever has to have American ties.  Those type scams should be reported to the FTC.  Your internet provider's tech support can tell you how to discover the true location from which the mail was sent by finding it in the internet header of the email you received.  (Do not open any attachments because they might contain viruses.)  A complaint can be lodged against that person's IP to stop them from sending out scam emails.

[Gone-Camping]

I got one today that stated the following...
 
 

Dear user of Gonecamping.net gateway e-mail server,Our antivirus software has detected a large ammount of viruses outgoing from your email account, you may use our free anti-virus tool to clean upyour computer software.Please, read the attach for further details.For security purposes the attached file is password protected. Password is "76580".Cheers, The Gonecamping.net team http://www.gonecamping.net

The attached file is a .zip file, but I'm much too weary of this type of stuff. For starters, the 'gateway email server' threw it off because I don't use anything remotely like that, or even sound close. Secondly, I don't have an outgoing email set-up for gonecamping.net, at least not under that name!!! So I knew it was bogus from the gitgo! I just delete crud like that!

[labontefan]

Recently I downloded a movie from somewhere I thought to be safe (ok, no lecturing please ) and I got a trojan (I believe) from an AVI file !

Something very similar happened to me not too long ago. I was visiting a new site and wanted to view a video clip. I got one of those "you need to download this software" boxes that usually wants you to download the latest version of something. I said OK, but chose the "download to file" option so the virus scanner could check it. It never did download...kept getting error messages, so I gave up.

Shortly after that, I started getting alerts from my firewall that some program on my PC was trying to access the Internet. I told the firewall to block it because I didn't recognize the file. It was a .exe file which concerned me! I tried to delete it but couldn't.

My Norton Internet Security automatically updates its virus files every week. The next time it updated, it informed me I had a virus on my computer! It was the .exe file that I tried to delete! Apparently Norton didn't recognize it till the files were updated.

Fortunately, the file itself doesn't do anything to your PC. It was a "Trojan downloader" file so it goes out and contacts other websites and downloads the harmful files from them. Since my firewall blocked its access to the Internet, it couldn't do anything.

The Norton website told me how to get rid of it and I did. All the scans since then have been clean. I don't know for sure that trying to download the video clip was what did it, but it seemed the most likely culprit. I hadn't gotten any suspicious e-mails or done anything else that should have allowed the virus to gain access to my PC.

You know...if the people that spend all their time and energy devising these viruses and e-mail scams would spend the same time and energy on a legitimate business they could probably make a fortune. But I guess they'd rather cause other people problems!

[NightOwl]

All, I can say is, I dont trust ANYONE who phones or e-mails me any more about anything unless I know them personally.  A man from our bank called me last week and I was almost abusively impolite to him until the poor soul could prove to me that he was legitimate and not a crook (I now treat almost everyone as though they are guilty until they prove they are innocent. : And I dont make that an  easy  task for them. :eek:

Yes, Cliff, I got the same bogus _"you are sending out a virus" warning last week asking me to contact a certain site.  I delelted it ASAP.

There are so many horror tales about this stuf that we could all just spend our time warning each other endlessly about these jerks.  :mad:

And I'm with the rest of you in wondering what goes through th sick e minds of the people who commit this crap.

I suppose in their spare time some of them are TROLLS just looking for a little excitement to add to their dull and totally meaningless, valueless lives.

[NCSunshine]

I have been receiving those emails also.  Plus a few that had a link that you click on to stop receiving those emails, but after the link are strange arrangement of letters.  Such as:  asdfkjadk  kadf  dkskeit dohg  dk wly

I did not click on these because it looked to suspecious.