Important notify about your e-mail account

The emails you're getting with the above subject line? The ones that appear to come from your system administrator? They're fakes.

The attachments contain a worm (like a virus) called W32.Beagle.J. Don't open the attachments.

More generally: if you get an email you're not expecting, and it has an attachment, be very suspicious. If the attachment is a .pif, .exe, .scr, .cmd, .bat, or .zip file, be extremely suspicious. Never open such attachments unless you're quite certain they're not viruses.

The latest set of viruses (and there've been a bunch of these lately) all have one thing in common: they attempt to fool you into opening an attachment. They do this by claiming to be bouncing mail (MyDoom), or by insulting you (Netsky.D), or by claiming you're a spammer (Beagle.J), or by any other means the virus writers can come up with. As ballot measure arguments like to say: Don't be fooled!

(If you're on a Mac or UNIX, this is much less of a big deal than if you're on Windows. But you should still be wary of opening unexpected attachments.)

Oddly, this virus apparently takes the trouble to fake both the From line and the Return-Path line as different addresses. Weird. Anyway, as with most such viruses, you can't assume that the message really came from who it claims to have come from.

One Response to “Important notify about your e-mail account”

  1. David Moles

    It’s especially entertaining to get these when you are the system administrator.

    reply

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