Friday, June 17, 2005

Virus Alert

Over the past couple of days I've gotten a string of emails on my yahoo account posing as "official" yahoo emails. With the email comes an attachment... that attachment contains the W32.Mytob virus. The W32.Mytob virus is a mass-mailing worm that opens a back door and lowers security settings on the compromised computer. It affects Windows 2000, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows NT, Windows Server 2003, and Windows XP. Looking at Symantec's website for recent virus threats, W32.Mytob has come up a lot over the past week and it appears that it's constantly changing letters after W32.Mytob (ex: W32.Mytob.ED@mm).

The sender of these particular emails have been using yahoo.com addresses. Official yahoo emails come as yahoo-inc.com.

For you yahoo mail users, here's an example of what a real email from yahoo would look like:

Notice that it's highlighted in blue and had the red yahoo "Y".

And here's how the fake emails with the virus look:

Notice it's not highlighted and there's no yahoo "Y". It also has the paperclip showing there's an attachment.

Now, I have two guess on why I'm getting these. 1. Someone's simply playing asshole and wants to send me a virus, or 2. the most likely option is that someone who has me in their address book has this virus which is why I would suggest scanning your computer now. It's a good idea to do so at least once a week anyway.

Web mail is a good way to keep viruses off your pc. But, if you use web mail or an email client (ex. Outlook or Thunderbird), never open attachments from strange sources.

Just lookin' out for yall.

B.E.Z.

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