Internet Worm Disguised as E-Mail from Microsoft

Reuters ^ | 19 May 2003

[strela]

A few of these virus writers, password phishers, and scamsters need to be identified, apprehended, and made to clean bedpans at the nearest county hospital with their tongue. I get at least one copy of the W32Gibe.B virus every day on another account. And it always originates from different ISPs.

[exnavy]

I've been on the net for about six years, been using the most up to date zonealarm firewall and norton antivirus, haven't had any virusii yet(knock wood)!

[Calpernia]

I got that one too. I was wondering what it was about.

[Pikachu_Dad]

Me too.

[AIC]

I got the E-Bay and PayPal as well. I guess someone has pinpointed freepers.

[amigatec]

I get hit with slapper everyday. My linux firewall stops them as well as all the port scans I get.

[DB]

There's a Netscape version 4.80 (the last apparently of the 4.xx line). That's what I use.

[dsc]

I got one on April 30.

It looked suckspishus, though, so I didn't open it. Just been waiting to hear something.

[dsc]

"A few of these virus writers, password phishers, and scamsters need to be identified, apprehended, and made to clean bedpans at the nearest county hospital with their tongue."

I kind of like William Gibson's "black ice" concept.

I wish I had the skills to write a program that would trace back these virus e-mails to the perpetrator (and not just the previous victim) and cause his computer to melt down. Turn off his CPU fan, maybe.

[MizSterious]

I got one of these last night. "Mailwasher" is especially nice for these kinds of things--it never even touches my hard drive, and can't cause the intended mischief. With MW, I just delete it from the mail server, no muss no fuss.

[ATOMIC_PUNK]

Fizzer Virus Spreading, Possibly Through KaZaa

E-mail Worm Pretends To Be From Microsoft

Virus Contains Own Mail Sending Program

POSTED: 11:54 a.m. EDT May 20, 2003

If you get unexpected e-mail from Microsoft, it could be a new e-mail worm.

Antivirus company Sophos said that the Palyh worm arrives as a .pif file attached to mail purportedly from support@microsoft.com.

There are various subject lines for the mail -- including "Your details," "Approved" and "Your Password" -- as well as various names on the attached file. The subject line and attachment name are often similar.

The worm searches your hard drive for e-mail addresses, and sends itself out to those people. It contains its own mail program, and does not require users to have Outlook or Outlook Express installed to work.

[js1138]

I just got one.