Virus Protection
 

I learned a computer trick today that's really ingenious in it's
simplicity.

As you may know, when/if a worm virus gets into your computer it heads
straight for your e-mail address book, and sends itself to everyone in
there, thus infecting all your friends and associates. This trick
won't keep the virus from getting into your computer, but it will stop
it from using your address book to spread further, and it will alert you
to the fact, that the worm has gotten into your system.

Here's what you do; first, open your address book and click on "new
contact",
Just as you would do if you were adding a new friend to your list of
e-mail addresses.

In the window where you would type your friend's first name, type in
AAAAAAA, Also use address [email protected]

Now, Here's what you've done and why it works: The name AAAAAAA will be
placed at the top of your address book as entry #1. This will be where
the worm will start in an effort to send itself to all your friends.
But, when it tries to send itself to AAAAAAA, it will be undeliverable
because of the phony e-mail address you entered.

If the first attempt fails (which it will because of the phony address),
the worm goes no further and your friends will not be infected.

Here's the second great advantage of this method: If an e-mail cannot
be delivered, you will be notified of this in your IN BOX almost
immediately. Hence, if you ever get an e-mail telling you that an
e-mail addressed to AAAAAAA could not be delivered, you know right away
that you have the worm virus in your system. You can then take steps to
get rid of it!

If everybody you know does this then you need not ever worry about
opening
mail from friends. You may want to pass this on.

This trick may be useful in giving you the heads up, however, I wouldn't rely on it. You should in no way trust a virus to behave in a predictable manner. Just because some email virii give up after the first address if delivery fails, you have no indication whatsoever that any other virii do too. Also, this only deals with one of the huge number of attack and replication vectors possible. It's worth doing because of its simplicity, but do NOT rely on it, and do NOT assume that you can open any email safely because you are using this trick. You should continue to be as vigilant as before, and consider yourself lucky if the trick works.

Norton Anti-Virus 2004 with worm blocking and script blocking will keep them out in the first place and alert you that they TRIED to enter your PC. A firewall never hurt either.

Damn I hate those guys...

to a degree this is true... but the next new virus/worm is right around the corner and in most cases when the "good" ones hit the anti-virus tools are just left with a "download this to remove it" option.

In most cases the best virus deterent is the user.... don't open crap you do not trust... and quit clicking on a link... just because it is there does not mean you need to click on it.

As M45 said, when it comes to getting hacked, in today's world a firewall is a must have (specially if you have a broadband connection).

We have the Norton Anti-Virus.My internet provider also
removes all possibly infected attachments!An aquaintence of
mine also owns & operates a computer business:ONE SECOND
Computers & Communications in Dover NH.He suggested not to
open anything with an attachment,unless you know that it is OK!
For example,my cousin,in Conn,includes a note telling me that an
attachment on her e-mail is OK to open!Not foolproof but every-
thing helps! Irish

Man that is the truth.

I have auto update turned on so at least I get the protection as soon as it is avalible.

I never open an email if it not some thing I am expecting, DELETE! .

The only way to block a trjon horse coming in through a back door is with a fire wall.

We do a lot of ebay and there are folks sending out fake billing emails with bad links, looks like something you would get from a seller, if you bought something, but the link takes you to a fake ebay or paypal site, always go to the site through your known bookmark or type the address in the address bar yourself, must be very careful any more....

Damn I hate those guys...

Did I say that before?

If only it were that simple.

I apologize in advance to all who I am about to antagonize.

The above suggests you can stop worms propagating by adding a fake contact named AAAAAAA to your address book. Don't believe it. It's a hoax wrapped up in techno-speak to make you think it's legit. Let's take a look at the whole thing in order to show you in just how many ways it is plain wrong:

"…when/if a worm virus gets into your computer it heads straight for your email address book, and sends itself to everyone in there, thus infecting all your friends and associates.”

Partially true, so far. Some mass mailing worms do raid your email program in order to propagate. But many of them do not. Many of the current crop of worms contain their own SMTP server, so they can handle their own email sending without bothering your email program. This gets around a patch MS released for Outlook. They search your hard disk for email addresses wherever they lurk and use them to propagate.

“This trick won't keep the virus from getting into your computer, but it will stop it from using your address book to spread further, and it will alert you to the fact that the worm has gotten into your system.”

True, false, false. True, the trick won't stop your computer from getting infected. False, it won't stop the worm from using your address book (Outlook, Netscape, Eudora, etc.) to spread. False, it won't alert you to the fact you're infected.

“Now, here's what you've done and why it works: The "name" AAAAAAA will be placed at the top of your address book as entry #1. This will be where the worm will start in an effort to send itself to all your friends.”

Actually, no. What you are looking at when you are looking at your address book is a sorted list. The physical order of your address book entries will probably be totally different that the alphabetically ordered list on your screen. Why would the worm start at the top of your address book? The worm will start wherever the virus writer has determined it will start. It might simply use all addresses beginning with 'M' or every third address, or take the addresses in the order they were originally entered into the address database. Worm writers don't abide by some set of rules that says, "Keepest thou thy worm in alphabetical order."

“But, when it tries to send itself to AAAAAAA, it will be undeliverable because of the phony email address you entered. If the first attempt fails (which it will because of the phony address), the worm goes no further and your friends will not be infected.”

Well, this might be the case if you're dealing with a truly dumb worm. But I haven't yet heard of any worms that are this dumb. All a worm needs to do is ignore the invalid address and move on to more juicy pickings in your address book, and that's what those I’m aware of do.

“Here's the second great advantage of this method: If an email cannot be delivered, you will be notified of this in your In Box almost immediately. Hence, if you ever get an email telling you that an email addressed to A could not be delivered, you know right away that you have the worm virus in your system.”

Commonly true, but it doesn't necessarily work that way. When or whether you get a "bounced mail" message depends on a whole lot of factors.

Again, to all who are offended by my critique, permit me to apologize.

While we're on techspeak, the rogue code described here is not a worm, it is a virus. Worms are almost totally autonomous, not reliant on user intervention - ie, checking and reading email in this case - to activate them.

The firewall should do that, amongst other things, but if, like 99% of home users, it runs at the same level of privilege as the user unwittingly activating the trojan, it is as good as dead. Also, I won't go into deep detail here, but it is possible for a backdoor to exist in a manner that very few - if any firewalls, and this includes commercial-grade, hardware firewalls - will ever detect.

Belial,

Interesting point.

Ref http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/56/32672.htm

I just got this sent to me, Irish. I think it'd work. :confused:

Dicksbro---Did it say to use lubricated or non-lubricated?
Reservoir tip or plain? Irish
P.S.Sidepoint---The first time,that I bought prophelactics(sp)
(rubbers)was in a BX in the service.There was a very sexily
built girl,waiting on the counter.
She said:"what size?"
Thinking that she meant,the size of my penis,I said"Large!"
After realising,that she meant the size of the container,I got
really emrarrassed.What do you do with a large box,when you're
18yrs old?

I did say in my first comment

Quote:

What the firewall does is attempts to stop.....

Not it "will".....i put "attempts" because of the exact reason you have stated....most ppl do not go into the settings and soup up or customize there Firewall