Latest Virus - "Dear friend"?

[stevenrw]

Has anybody recieved a spam email with the heading "dear friend" with an advert for cheap electronics www.  fugaotc.com?
It seems to access your contact list and forwards itself to all the entries on the list.
It then wiped out our Hotmail contact list. Of course you can't get in touch with Hotmail to see if you can get the list reinstated from backup (I assume it's stored on MSN's servers?)
Beware - just delete it. We only opened the mail, not the attachment.

[Rik]

Haven't seen it, Steve, but thanks for the warning. 

[Gary]

Has anybody recieved a spam email with the heading "dear friend" with an advert for cheap electronics www.  fugaotc.com?
It seems to access your contact list and forwards itself to all the entries on the list.
It then wiped out our Hotmail contact list. Of course you can't get in touch with Hotmail to see if you can get the list reinstated from backup (I assume it's stored on MSN's servers?)
Beware - just delete it. We only opened the mail, not the attachment.

Sounds nasty, I only open mail from people I know, I have a feature called mail dispatcher in my internet security that allows me to see the properties before its downloaded from the server, so I can delete before it gets to the pc, thanks for the heads up

[Tacitus]

Has anybody recieved a spam email with the heading "dear friend" with an advert for cheap electronics www.  fugaotc.com?

I've just had a load of them on my academic address.  Most have been caught by the spam traps, but a few made it through for some reason.  Remembering what happened a couple of years ago at the start of term when a student in one of the halls connected his laptop and took the whole University down for 3 days before they could trace the source, I can see it happening again.  They've just gone over to an all-Microsoft setup complete with Outlook, Exchange Server the full Monty, so maybe I should run a book on how long it will be before it happens again.

[Gary]

Why do people open these though if Its not mail from someone I know, be it friend or business an email from a name like fugaotc.com would be binned before anyone could open it

[stevenrw]

Just to be clear - the sendee isn't the dodgy site, it appears to be from oneself. So if your address is Another@hotmail.com, it seems to be from Another@hotmail.com.

[Gary]

Just to be clear - the sendee isn't the dodgy site, it appears to be from oneself. So if your address is Another@hotmail.com, it seems to be from Another@hotmail.com.

So you get an email spoofed as yourself?

[Rik]

I never read anything from myself, I know it's going to be rubbish.

[Simon]

It's unfortunate that people still fall for these, as it only helps proliferation. 

[J!ll]

I was warned a couple of weeks ago with this, not sure if it's the same?

http://www.snopes.com/computer/virus/postcard.asp

[Rik]

Slightly different one, Jill. They're all a pain, though.

[Gary]

It's unfortunate that people still fall for these, as it only helps proliferation. 

Why would you open an email from yourself about a product you had not ordered? Or for that matter an email spoofed from a friends Email address

[J!ll]

Slightly different one, Jill. They're all a pain, though.

Yes cos Snopes said it is real, but if you continue to read it states:

Although the Postcard virus is real, it isn't a "BIG VIRUS COMING" (It's already been around in multiple forms for a long time now, it will not "burn the whole hard disc" of your computer, CNN didn't classify it as the "worst virus" ever, and it doesn't arrive in messages bearing a subject line of 'Invitation.'

[Gary]

I never read anything from myself, I know it's going to be rubbish.

I just can't bear the typos, Rik. I forget what I was on about anyway

[Dangerjunkie]

maybe I should run a book on how long it will be before it happens again.

If they've gone that way then I think you should spend your cut from the book on a PAYG 3G modem for your laptop as you'll probably need it. Sod's law says that it will happen the night before a big coursework deadline.

Cheers,
Paul.