Richard Atcheson wrote:

On Monday 02 August 2004 09:38 pm, Maura Edelweiss Monville wrote:

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Is this safe with SuSE 8.2 ? Shsll I believe this message and download the offered purging code or do I risk a fatal virus ? Thank you

Maura, it's a scam! Whatever you do, DONT click on the links. Save yourself some possible headaches and delete the email.

Don't verify your address by acknowledging anything from whoever it is. ra

Basically, Maura, the rule of thumb is, if it's from someone you _don't_ know, delete it. No real security vendor (that I know of) is going to ever e-mail you about a virus they've detected on your computer. I get those things occasionally. You generally see something in the subject heading like: <> Your PC is infected (they may even list all the viruses they claim to have found in the body of the e-mail) <> Our Bank's records have beend h/cracked. Come to our web site to give us your bank account # <> E-mail us your private information (root password, bank account info, social security #, etc.) <> Similar things to get your info These are all scams. Also things that get forwarded may simply be a nuisnace, but they could contain viruses. I got e-mail - supposedly from my Dad's e-mail address - containing a virus. It obviously was spoofed. Dad would never have sent me something like that. In fact, he could not have in this case - he was enroute to my house at the time. Fortunately, Yahoo's e-mail service correctly detected the virus. Even so, I would have recognized something like that and merely deleted it. Mozilla offers a tool to filter out most of this type stuff. I close the preview window to keep from opening the e-mail, and then mark it as junk or trash. That way, I don't even have to open it (which may or may not be detected by the sender).

Sid Boyce wrote:

Don Parris wrote:

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Richard Atcheson wrote:

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On Monday 02 August 2004 09:38 pm, Maura Edelweiss Monville wrote:

...

Is this safe with SuSE 8.2 ? Shsll I believe this message and download the offered purging code or do I risk a fatal virus ? Thank you

Maura, it's a scam! Whatever you do, DONT click on the links. Save yourself some possible headaches and delete the email.

Don't verify your address by acknowledging anything from whoever it is. ra

Basically, Maura, the rule of thumb is, if it's from someone you _don't_ know, delete it. No real security vendor (that I know of) is going to ever e-mail you about a virus they've detected on your computer. I get those things occasionally. You generally see something in the subject heading like: <> Your PC is infected (they may even list all the viruses they claim to have found in the body of the e-mail) <> Our Bank's records have beend h/cracked. Come to our web site to give us your bank account # <> E-mail us your private information (root password, bank account info, social security #, etc.) <> Similar things to get your info

These are all scams. Also things that get forwarded may simply be a nuisnace, but they could contain viruses. I got e-mail - supposedly from my Dad's e-mail address - containing a virus. It obviously was spoofed. Dad would never have sent me something like that. In fact, he could not have in this case - he was enroute to my house at the time. Fortunately, Yahoo's e-mail service correctly detected the virus. Even so, I would have recognized something like that and merely deleted it.

Mozilla offers a tool to filter out most of this type stuff. I close the preview window to keep from opening the e-mail, and then mark it as junk or trash. That way, I don't even have to open it (which may or may not be detected by the sender).

The RULE-OF-THUMB should be to delete such messages even if they are from someone you know, it may be a pass-the-parcel email from your infected friend. Of course if you are using just Linux, you shouldn't care. I've had one experience using Lotus Notes for work, clicking on certain messages seemed to take a very long time for them to open, when I checked, it was queueing up a bunch to mail out, so I killed all the postfix processes that were running -- that was under Crossover Office -- if it runs Windows programs, believe it's Windows, that goes for Wine and friends which are encapsulated Windows in a Linux box, they can't hurt Linux of course, but anyone receiving infected stuff from a Linux box will blame Linux, if it's from a Windows box no blame is apportioned. Regards Sid.

Good point. I was really talking about exercising caution when opening _any_ e-mail from someone you don't know. The main thing is to learn to recognize subject headings, and the e-mail address in the "From" field. But yes, if you get suspicious-looking e-mail from people you _do_ know, delete it also.

On Monday 02 August 2004 21:38, Maura Edelweiss Monville wrote:

...

Is this safe with SuSE 8.2 ? Shsll I believe this message and download the offered purging code or do I risk a fatal virus ?

As others have already told you, you're more likely to pick up a virus or trojan by following the link(s) in the email, especially if you are using Window. (Yes, I know that the likelihood of picking up a nasty that will affect Linux is pretty low, but I get paid to be paranoid.)

In short, it's spam. Delete it or report it, as you see fit. If you decide to report it, http://www.spamcop.net is a good starting place.

This is good advice - but don't fall into the trap of thinking that viruses/trojans only affect Windows. Even if a program won't run on Linux, it can still be a nuisance. Once, for example, I clicked on an .exe file (I know, I know - stupid, must just have been bored or something) and since SuSE try to make everything easier for you, wine proceeded to try and run the program. The end result was that about 80 files were deposited in EACH of the subdirectories (including hidden) of my home folder. No real harm done, except disk space used up and a lot of time to delete them, but a real pain in the proverbial. I won't do that again! David