Can everybody take two minutes please

[Michael W.]

to update and run their anti-virus program. My mailbox is regularly FLOODED with bogus messages infected with the KLEZ virus.

EVERY message without exception has a variant on email addresses of posters to this site.

[Bill Braun 33186]

Jeez, Mikey...

can anybody have a littel fun.

Fred Klez #54661

[Gary Schisler]

Re: Jeez, Mikey...

Mike, your comments are valid. Why not follow that up with an off-line e-mail to the offender(s) as well as posting it here? Some folks just don't know that they are infected.
Gary

[Duke W.]

Re: Jeez, Mikey...

The KLEZ virus usually DOES NOT come from the computer that belongs to the
"from" address. The virus generates e-mails from the infected systems
by pulling both the "from" and "to" addresses from the infected systems address book, so there is no way to tell where the infected e-mail actually came from.

Notwithstanding the above, everyone should have an anti-virus program and update the virus definitions weekly and set the program to scan all incomming e-mail. I get warned of several KLEZ infected e-mails everyday from my Norton AV program, and it quarantines the infected files.

The infected e-mails are from both familiar and unfamiliar addresses.

Especially if you don't have active and current AV software, NEVER open an attached file from and unknown person, and don't open an attached file from a known person unless they explain in the body of their message what the file is. Also, as a courtesy to others, always name any files you attach and explain the contents of attached files, so the recipient will have some confidence that the communciation is not generated from a virus.

The KLEZ virus is in the attachment, so if you delete the e-mail without opening the file you will not be infected, but the instant you open the attached infected file, you ARE infected.

Having AV software in today's world has become a necessity - just like auto and home insurance.

Duke

[Michael W.]

The common element is

that all the infected emails I get have a 'from' address that is similar (but not identical) to someone who has posted recently on this board.

I participate in several Corvette related forums as well as other hobbies, the latest round of emails are 'from' people who are not members of those other forums and apparantly only this one.

If someone is too cheap to buy anti-virus software, there are FREE instructions on the symantec site on how to get rid of this bug:

http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.klez.removal.tool.html

[John H.]

Re: The common element is

Mike -

I get 6-8 of them every day, and have for months, with "proxy" "from" addresses that have obviously been "harvested" from lots of different sites, not just this one. There are now 18 variants of the Klez virus (up two more from last week), and the last eight all work the same way. The Internet is filled with wonders these days (most of which are infected with something).