Post by thread:[OT] Worm alert

FYI (From this morning's Washington Post) > It's being called the worst computer worm of the year -- a > fast-spreading Internet threat that looks like an official e-mail from > the CIA or FBI but can leave your computer wide open to intruders. > > The bogus e-mail claims the government has discovered you visiting > "illegal" Web sites and asks you to open an attachment to answer some > official questions. If you do, your computer gets infected with > malware that can disable security and firewall programs and blast out > similar e-mails to contacts in your address book. :

> > It's being called the worst computer worm of the year -- a > > fast-spreading Internet threat that looks like an official e-mail from > > the CIA or FBI but can leave your computer wide open to intruders. > > > > The bogus e-mail claims the government has discovered you visiting > > "illegal" Web sites and asks you to open an attachment to answer some > > official questions. If you do, your computer gets infected with > > malware that can disable security and firewall programs and blast out > > similar e-mails to contacts in your address book. Since I use Gmail, I feel safer than people browsing their mail on a dedicated mail program (Thunderbird, Outlook, etc.). Does anyone have a feel for the veracity of that? Mike H.

>>> ... threat that looks like an official e-mail from the CIA or FBI >>> but can leave your computer wide open to intruders. > Perhaps if you have a very guilty conscience. The one I received was from 'spam_OUTdepartmentTakeThisOuTcia.gov' and contained significant grammar errors. Besides, I know as an american that if the CIA gets mad at me, they'll come knocking down my door with a swat team, not send some reasonably polite email, cause I watch TV! Shucks, with the stuff I do rather openly, I'll probably just disappear to a 'camp' in cuba... > Since I use Gmail, I feel safer than people browsing their mail on a > dedicated mail program (Thunderbird, Outlook, etc.). > > Does anyone have a feel for the veracity of that? Gmail, or yahoo, or other web-based email systems, insert presumably highly-supported, well maintained, carefully monitored, and very up-to-date email client software in between you and any viruses or worms/etc that might be out there. I would think the involved companies have a very strong interest in NOT seeing such malware propagated. In addition, malware that exploits actual bugs in the client software (buffer overflow cracks and such) would end up attacking the host software and not your PC software. However, web browsers are equally guilty to most pc clients in that their ease-of-use features still allow you to easily do stupid things like 'click on the attachment', so "social engineering cracks" like this one wouldn't seem to be much safer read either way. And browsers have their own list of crackable bugs... BillW

Mike wrote regarding 'Re: [OT] Worm alert' on Thu, Nov 24 at 12:38: > > > It's being called the worst computer worm of the year -- a > > > fast-spreading Internet threat that looks like an official e-mail from > > > the CIA or FBI but can leave your computer wide open to intruders. > > > > > > The bogus e-mail claims the government has discovered you visiting > > > "illegal" Web sites and asks you to open an attachment to answer some > > > official questions. If you do, your computer gets infected with > > > malware that can disable security and firewall programs and blast out > > > similar e-mails to contacts in your address book. > > Since I use Gmail, I feel safer than people browsing their mail on a > dedicated mail program (Thunderbird, Outlook, etc.). > > Does anyone have a feel for the veracity of that? Since I use mutt on a machine with no GUI running Linux and have to go through at least one scp/ftp operation to even get an attachment from my email program to a machine where I can even run it, I feel safer than people using a webmail system. On top of that, my mail server rejects all comon executable attachments outright, and knows how to flag spam as spam otherwise. How about that? ;) If the mail says "download this and run it" then it doesn't matter what program you're using - you can have a problem. If the mail system shows HTML email, there's probably a way for someone to get around any sanitizing that might be done and run some code in your browser. If there's a problem with your browser (Firefox isn't immune, though it's less dumb than IE). I'm pretty sure that Gmail lets HTML email through rather than converting it to plain text, so there's always a way for it to exploit you. I'd say that it's at least as dangerous as Thunderbird, though both are better than Outlook/Outlook Express (since those two use the IE rendering engine). Just in case that wasn't a joke response... --Danny, pretty sure that the CIA and FBI can damned well come to my house if they need information - they're not gonna just email me. :)

Politially correct torture, beat you up, then give you a questioinare on how you 'felt'... ;-) ----- Original Message ----- From: "William Chops Westfield" <.....westfwKILLspam@spam@mac.com> To: "Microcontroller discussion list - Public." <piclistKILLspammit.edu> Sent: Thursday, November 24, 2005 10:22 PM Subject: Re: [OT] Worm alert {Quote hidden}> > >>> ... threat that looks like an official e-mail from the CIA or FBI > >>> but can leave your computer wide open to intruders. > > > Perhaps if you have a very guilty conscience. The one I received was > from '.....departmentKILLspam.....cia.gov' and contained significant grammar errors. > Besides, I know as an american that if the CIA gets mad at me, they'll > come knocking down my door with a swat team, not send some reasonably > polite email, cause I watch TV! Shucks, with the stuff I do rather > openly, I'll probably just disappear to a 'camp' in cuba... > > > > Since I use Gmail, I feel safer than people browsing their mail on a > > dedicated mail program (Thunderbird, Outlook, etc.). > > > > Does anyone have a feel for the veracity of that? > > Gmail, or yahoo, or other web-based email systems, insert presumably > highly-supported, well maintained, carefully monitored, and very > up-to-date email client software in between you and any viruses or > worms/etc that might be out there. I would think the involved > companies have a very strong interest in NOT seeing such malware > propagated. In addition, malware that exploits actual bugs in the > client software (buffer overflow cracks and such) would end up > attacking the host software and not your PC software. However, > web browsers are equally guilty to most pc clients in that their > ease-of-use features still allow you to easily do stupid things > like 'click on the attachment', so "social engineering cracks" > like this one wouldn't seem to be much safer read either way. And > browsers have their own list of crackable bugs... > > BillW > > --