[Leica] Warning: a LUGger's computer may need a shot of penicillin

[Michael Gerard <geeman1066@earthlink.net>]

LUGnuts:
        A heads up for my fellow LUGnuts--I got a note from a
LUGger who thought I had a virus on my computer.  It seems that
he received messages that indicate they have been sent from my
email address (though my name doesn't show up as it usually does,
just my email address), and that contained suspicious attachments
with strange subject headings.  I have recently gotten a few
bounces lately from sites to which I hadn't written, but had
assumed my wife had. Seeing both these strange things happen, I
suspected that I did have a virus.  Being a fearful and dutiful
soul, I went out, purchased Norton Internet Security, got all of
the virus updates off the internet and ran it.  I don't have any
viruses on this computer.  So I worried that a third party had
hacked my account.  I am on dialup, so it is unlikely, but what
do I know?  I changed my passwords, and got a firewall up.  I'm
still getting funny bounces and strange messages.
           I called Earthlink's technical support. I described
the problem, and the tech support guy said that the problem is
probably a klez virus, and that someone who has my address in
their address book has the virus.  I'm certainly not a techie,
but here's my best translation of what he told me.  Hopefully,
I've gotten it all right.  He said that two things happen:  1) it
picks random addresses out of the address book and uses them as
the sender's email address when this person sends out emails,
and 2) versions of the klez can generate emails using the address
book and send them out to other people in that address book,
while also performing #1 above.  My guess is that a LUGger who
has both of our email addresses has got the virus, because I've
been getting those bounced emails for a couple of weeks, and
today I got two strange emails again that seemed to have been
sent by LUGgers--again, probably a couple more folks in the poor,
unwitting soul's address book.
           The earthlink technical support staff member said that
usually the klez runs its course when the person figures out that
they aren't getting emails back.  I haven't opened any of these
attachments, so I'm not infected.  However, I thought you all
might want a heads up so you can run some anti-virus software.
Any techies out there who can better explain this than I, please
feel free to correct any errors I've made.  Apologies for the
lengthy email.
Regards,
Michael Gerard
geeman1066@earthlink.net


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