Tech: Sobig virus stopper -checks email

Subject: Tech: Sobig virus stopper -checks email
From: Bill D
Date: 22 Aug 03 - 01:57 PM

on this page is a temporary helper program to screen email...it might ease things for some..

Subject: RE: Tech: Sobig virus stopper -checks email
From: Bill D
Date: 22 Aug 03 - 01:58 PM

here are 2 comment from the newsgroup where I found it,

"Works great. I bet I was bombarded with 200 sobig infected e-mails
yesterday. Since this program keeps stats, it will be interesting to see how
many it catches."

"Thanks for this link, Bob. I've been using this program all day today and
it intercepted 1348 bogus emails saving me a lot of time. Unfortunately it
doesn't intercept "undeliverable" messages so there were a few hundred more
that I had to ditch manually."

Subject: RE: Tech: Sobig virus stopper -checks email
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 22 Aug 03 - 04:15 PM

Thanks. With this and Mailwasher, maybe it'll stem the tide. I feel like King Canute.

But what does "temporary" mean here? That preetty soon the creep who set this one up will modify it so that the program won't work?

What would happen if one was foolish enough to open one of teattachments?

Subject: RE: Tech: Sobig virus stopper -checks email
From: katlaughing
Date: 22 Aug 03 - 04:28 PM

Hmmm, thanks, Bill. I've passed it on to Rog, at work, where they've been having major problems with this. My Eudora seems to have thwarted whatever (my fingers are crossed:-).

kat

Subject: RE: Tech: Sobig virus stopper -checks email
From: Sorcha
Date: 22 Aug 03 - 07:06 PM

At least this is one problem I'm not having trouble with!

Subject: RE: Tech: Sobig virus stopper -checks email
From: Bill D
Date: 22 Aug 03 - 10:29 PM

McGrath...all I meant was that this program is specialized for just this virus...it is not a general purpose tool and will be of no use when this virus is history..(he says it is free, but if you want to contribtute, he won't refuse..)

Subject: RE: Tech: Sobig virus stopper -checks email
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 22 Aug 03 - 11:28 PM

If you get it...change ISP's...they should have screened it out first.

Subject: RE: Tech: Sobig virus stopper -checks email
From: bbc
Date: 23 Aug 03 - 09:20 AM

Thanks, Bill. I haven't had the problem, but my son & his girlfriend are deluged w/ the junk!

bbc

Subject: RE: Tech: Sobig virus stopper -checks email
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 23 Aug 03 - 11:18 AM

This program doesn't make a lot of sense. This is one remark I question:

Unfortunately, most anti-virus systems that installed on mail servers are made so, that they forward the whole infected e-mail to the sender. The virus uses your e-mail as the sender address and then you get megabytes of infected mail that was intercepted by the anti-virus. I-Worm.Sobig.F Virus Stopper now detects and deletes «undelivered» e-mails that flooded your mailbox after such «cure».

If it's resident on your computer, how is it going to stop undelivered email on the email server? You aren't going to install this on your ISPs server. I suspect this doesn't acurately describe what it really does and I question if it does anything. I'm doing just fine with my Norton Antivirus, my spam guard setup at my ISP, and common sense.

SRS

Subject: RE: Tech: Sobig virus stopper -checks email
From: Bill D
Date: 23 Aug 03 - 11:47 AM

well, by running my antivirus and firewall and Win98 and deleting spam on the server, I have no problems yet either, so I have not personally installed it.

Perhaps this program works like my mail screening program, which IS resident on my computer, but deletes unwanted mail at the ISP server. I can see a specialized version of a mail screening program being able to do just that.

Subject: RE: Tech: Sobig virus stopper -checks email
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 23 Aug 03 - 10:57 PM

I guess the reason I haven't seen all those emails is that I'm still chugging along with Win98SE. I believe I read that the virus and worm of the week only affect 2000 and XP. Now I'm not so sorry I didn't get a new XP computer.

Aloha,
Mark
(whose laptop hard drive has been making little urpy sounds recently so he may have to eat those words...)

Subject: RE: Tech: Sobig virus stopper -checks email
From: Sooz
Date: 24 Aug 03 - 04:57 AM

I use Windows 98 and I've had the deluge of emails.

Subject: RE: Tech: Sobig virus stopper -checks email
From: Jim McLean
Date: 24 Aug 03 - 07:25 AM

Having Windows 98 wont stop you receiving emails from infected WinXP (2000, NT) computers if you are on their mailing list.

Subject: RE: Tech: Sobig virus stopper -checks email
From: Bill D
Date: 24 Aug 03 - 12:17 PM

I have been getting what 'seems' to be an increase in spam recently, but almost none get to my email program (Eudora), unless they arrived while Eudora was doing an automatic check while I had it open....and...now I have turned off THAT possibility, so that I have to manually check for new mail, which I do right after I have deleted the unwanted stuff from the server using a mailscanning program.

(am I proselytizing for this system? Well..maybe...*grin*)

Subject: RE: Tech: Sobig virus stopper -checks email
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 24 Aug 03 - 05:25 PM

Well, Jim, that makes sense--so it seems I've just been lucky. [knock, knock!]

Aloha,
Mark

Subject: RE: Tech: Sobig virus stopper -checks email
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 24 Aug 03 - 07:38 PM

No wonder the industry has been taken aback by the speed at which this virus propagated itself. To get your machine infected (which has little effect on it, but makes it a vehicle for onward propagation) you have first to be foolish enough to open unsolicited mail from unknown sources, and second foolish enough to open any attachments that come with such mail.

Those like Bill D (and me) who don't use non-Microsoft mail clients should not be troubled at all by this particular meance, nor by many others.

Subject: RE: Tech: Sobig virus stopper -checks email
From: Bill D
Date: 24 Aug 03 - 07:53 PM

oh, I suspect it is possible to infect yourself using non-MS mail...just easier to avoid (Fionn did mean 'DO' use non-MS)

you 'can' click on an attachment in almost any client, but Eudora integrates with my AVG antivirus, as well as having spam filters.

Subject: RE: Tech: Sobig virus stopper -checks email
From: GUEST,jennifer
Date: 25 Aug 03 - 02:20 AM

Norton picked up a file infected with sobig and removed it for me. I ran a search for files named sobig, found one in temp internet files and deleted that too. BUT I hadn't opened any unsolicited mails, let alone opened an attachment to one. (Very rarely I do open one, genuine peope are sometimes daft enough to send emails with the subject line "Hi"...) So how did we get it??

Jennifer

Subject: RE: Tech: Sobig virus stopper -checks email
From: mack/misophist
Date: 25 Aug 03 - 11:26 PM

It's nice to know there's some advantage in being a curmudgeon. This is the first I've heard of this flood of e-mails .Not that it would matter. I don't do windows any more.