Yahoo mail and that stupid virus

kddani · #1 08-22-2003, 08:13 AM

Is there anyone else out there who's account keeps getting filled with that stupid virus being sent around? My school email must have finally gotten a virus filter to stop it, but both of my yahoo account keep getting tons of them. Of course i'm not going to open them, but at around 100K each they start adding up and keep bumping my acounts over quota.

justamom · #2 08-22-2003, 08:34 AM

I am so stupid when it comes to the patches and everything. I tried to download, but it wouldn't. The next day, all thes e-mail are coming in saying your mail has been returned due to a virus-virus on your computer etc... When I pull down the details, I never even SENT an e-mail to these people. I have only family in my address book, and rarely send anything outside of them.
Is this just a hook, or are these mail notifications real??? I do NOT download attachments unless they are from my brother-in-law who is a security hound.

kateshort · #3 08-22-2003, 09:34 AM

I think what happens is that when the virus infects someone, it takes *their* address book and uses those addresses as the From: address to send the virus out.

For example: "Alphie" has my "adpi-vu" yahoo address in her address book, and gets the virus. Her infected computer now sends emails to "Rose" and "Anchor," others on her address list, but the emails appear to come from "adpi-vu."

Sucks, don't it? Because the messages end up swamping someone and then the "adpi-vu" account gets both "Mail Delivery Subsystem -- Mail Returned" messages and "You sent our system a virus" messages... neither of which actually came from that account.

Lady Pi Phi · #4 08-22-2003, 09:50 AM

I had a virus similar to that once. I was sending random emails to people I didn't even know. What this virus was doing was taking all the email addresses on my computer. So If I received a forward from a friend but it had been forwared 100 times before that this virus would send an email to who ever was addressed in the forward even if they weren't in my address book. It was weird to because in the email the subject name was taken from a file I had saved on my computer that wasn't an email.

I had typed up several poems that I was thinking of given to my little sister and I titled it Pi Phi Poems. Well the subject in the email that my computer was sending to people was called Pi Phi Poems. It was odd because I had never emailed them to anyone, yet that was the name of the email.

justamom · #5 08-22-2003, 09:59 AM

If a virus does send out e-mail to people in your address book, would it show up as "sent mail" or would it be hidden?

AOIIalum · #6 08-22-2003, 10:01 AM

My yahoo email is also under attack. Strangely enough it's my ancient and unused @geocities.com address that's been mined for this attack and not my @yahoo.com one. Go figure. Yahoo email is darned handy at times, but this kind of thing is just a big PITA!

smiley21 · #7 08-22-2003, 10:01 AM

in my yahoo account, i have a regular mail box and a bulk mail box. all of the junk mail always shows up in the bulk mail box. so whenever new mail comes in that box, i empty without giving it a look. i think that bulk mail box is pointless. so i probably had the virus mail sent to me, i just never knew it.

decadence · #8 08-22-2003, 10:02 AM

justamom: Hidden

ZTAngel · #9 08-22-2003, 10:07 AM

Who is creating these viruses?
Is it some little high school computer dork?

decadence · #10 08-22-2003, 10:18 AM

It's that damn Grapist!!

OrigamiTulip · #11 08-22-2003, 10:27 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by ZTAngel
Who is creating these viruses?
Is it some little high school computer dork?

They'd have to be a pretty advanced h.s. student to pull off this sort of attack.

Its sad that there are such talented people out there, using their abilities to wreak havoc instead of putting those skill to use and improving things.

Jadey28 · #12 08-22-2003, 10:52 AM

I've been having the same "emails" sent to my yahoo bulk mail account. I just delete the whole box and empty my trash afterwards. Hopefully, this virus will die down soon cause it's annoying!

decadence · #13 08-22-2003, 11:27 AM

I tried to find a picture of the Scooby Gang unmasking a cartoon villain so I could post it with an 'and I would've got away with it if it weren't for you pesky kids!' caption but couldn't find one. Guess I'll have to give a serious reply instead. Sigh.

Quote:

Originally posted by ZTAngel: Who is creating these viruses? Is it some little high school computer dork?

Quite possibly. The source code for most viruses is of course available on the 'Net. Newsgroup, forums and websites all discuss security problems discovered with computers, the latest viruses etc and how to write virii. Some people see it as a challenge, or a way of getting their names out there; much like graffiti.

Since you ask, from what is known most authors ARE high school or college students. Most are accomplished programmers in assembly language and other languages (those are different types of writing programs). Motives vary; as mentioned before a popular motive is notoriety, some are written to honor the author's hero, a funny game, a way to spread sociopolitical messages or some are written by tools in love - scripting messages to their girlfriends to flash on the computer screens of millions of people. A graph of when new viruses emerge shows peaks in the same months that high school and college students have their vacations - it's no coincidence there's a glut around now! The war between virus authors and anti-virus software companies raged even before Windows. Even MS-DOS 6 came with an antivirus program. As military historians know, volunteers often fight harder than paid mercenaries. Like a true zealot, a virus author is quite willing to stay up all hours, programmers working on anti-virus products on the other hand, generally go home at 5 pm. The battle won't end anytime soon.
The number of viruses in the world doubles probably about every ten months, some are rare and perhaps never found "in the wild" i.e outside the virus researcher's labs. In the past viruses took a long time to spread even with online BBS's. With the advent of the Internet, viruses spread covertly from system to system, reaching thousands of people in moments. As you have seen, new viruses are often written to take advantage of this convenient carrier system (e.g. 'email viruses').

In terms of what people can do to protect themselves, it's generally a matter of getting a decent anti-virus product and getting regular updates, plus applying relevant security updates for your system as they come out to avoid infection. The important thing is to subscribe for regular updates to your anti-virus software. Particularly for high risk users - these days anyone who shares software or connects unprotected to the 'Net. In days gone by one could probably get a shareware package to do the work, but with the vast amount of sites devoted to subverting computer security and writing viruses with how-to guides, it is no longer possible for people with limited resources to write cheap anti-virus software and update it when new viruses come up. Consequently we're at the mercy of anti-virus product companies as well as all those students. A shame p'raps but them's the breaks.

DWAlphaGam · #14 08-22-2003, 02:13 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by decadence
It's that damn Grapist!!

Don't be hating on The Grapist!

Yeah, I'm getting the Yahoo virus spam, too. I got over 60 messages on Tuesday with the stupid virus attachment. Haven't gotten any yet today. *knocks wood* It makes me mad because Yahoo is usually really good about blocking spam; I've never gotten a spam message in my account.

I sent the Yahoo help an e-mail about it asking them how I can stop it, but I'm not expecting a reply anytime soon. I'm kind of surprised that they haven't sent some sort of all users e-mail about it, though.

Thrillhouse · #15 08-22-2003, 07:10 PM

I got it today as well, yahoo has been reliable otherwise.