A public service announcement

[Phineas]

(note to the mods: yes, I know this isn't tickling related but I think more people would see it here. move it if you like, though.)

Today I loaded up my E-mail and my virus scanner went crazy. Normally my E-mail is bug-free but today I received not one, but THREE copies of the Klez.h virus, one of them from a fellow named "mtouchprod". (I know it wasn't you Jeff, but you may be infected. Go scan!)

Klez is a somewhat low-risk virus, but that doesn't mean we want it to run rampant over our collections of tickling JPGS (lol) so please folks, remember never to execute an attachment you aren't expecting, even if it's apparently from someone you know... and if you're using Outlook or Outlook Express, TURN OFF THOSE PREVIEW PANES!

Take care,
P

 

[MTJpub]

Hello,

This has been a problem for sometime now. Consider yourself lucky to just be getting hit now. I have been getting two-three of these daily for months now.

The virus has the ability to spoof the email FROM: field. The senders address used by the virus, may be one that was found on the infected user's system. Thus, it may appear that you have received this virus from one person, when it was actually sent from a different user's system. Viewing the entire email header will display the actual senders address.

Here is a link to my original alert on the subject last April...

http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?threadid=12956

Anti-virus programs are a must today.

You can get a free online virus scan here....
http://housecall.antivirus.com/pc_housecall/

Also this link has some helpful information with regards to your computer's general security...

https://grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2

 

[venray]

Thanks for the info Jeff. We get about 3 emails a day that are summarily deleted.

These are the results from the test site you posted...


Please Stand By. . .

Attempting connection to your computer. . .
Shields UP! is now attempting to contact the Hidden Internet Server within your PC. It is likely that no one has told you that your own personal computer may now be functioning as an Internet Server with neither your knowledge nor your permission. And that it may be serving up all or many of your personal files for reading, writing, modification and even deletion by anyone, anywhere, on the Internet!
Your Internet port ZZZ does not appear to exist!
One or more ports on this system are operating in FULL STEALTH MODE! Standard Internet behavior requires port connection attempts to be answered with a success or refusal response. Therefore, only an attempt to connect to a nonexistent computer results in no response of either kind. But YOUR computer has DELIBERATELY CHOSEN NOT TO RESPOND (that's very cool!) which represents advanced computer and port stealthing capabilities. A machine configured in this fashion is well hardened to Internet NetBIOS attack and intrusion.
Unable to connect with NetBIOS to your computer.
All attempts to get any information from your computer have FAILED. (This is very uncommon for a Windows networking-based PC.) Relative to vulnerabilities from Windows networking, this computer appears to be VERY SECURE since it is NOT exposing ANY of its internal NetBIOS networking protocol over the Internet.

Thanks again Jeff!


Ven

 

[MTJpub]

Welcome,

But this is Jim a.k.a. Morandilas from MTJ Publishing. Jeff & I have been confusing people for years!😀

 

[venray]

Welcome,

But this is Jim a.k.a. Morandilas from MTJ Publishing. Jeff & I have been confusing people for years!😀

I KNEW that..Really I did......🙄

sorry Jim

I am one who HAS confused the names for years lol

 

[JPie1]

pretty cool

Jeff that is a pretty neat utility to make sure a PC is secured. Myself I use a router as a firewall and all my ports are shown as Stealth, meaning (hopefully) no one can get to it by scanning. What a world we live in that we need to protect ourselves so.

 

[Myriads]

To give you some perspective, the forums e-mail address has been geting 10 to 20 copies of this virus a day. It's a pain in the arse. Since the damn thing comes with a 121k attachment thats 2 Megs of download that I have to clear out every night. Bah! Viri! Hate 'em!

Myriads

 

[unitkl]

How will it be stopped? Can it be?

 

[Phineas]

yep, I figured it was worse for others... I generally don't get any virii unless there's an epidemic going around, in which case everyone's getting 'em. Hence my warning - it may be an increase in activity lately.

and to answer the question of can it be stopped, the answer is no. you can't get people to stop sending you E-mail, especially when you don't know who it's coming from anyway (as is usually the case with virii). all you can do is clean 'em out when you get 'em. sad, really.

 

[dvnc]

It'll stop the same way previous self-propigating email viruses on the PC have been stopped - by everyone innoculating their PCs, so to speak. Once the virus is active, a user must actively remove it. This means an antivirus package.

Any virus or trojan horse requires a user action to start it, btw. Changing your email to NOT open attachments immediately can stop some of this. Not opening ones from folks you don't know will help.

Also helps if you're using a Mac, or running Linux, as most virii are written for PC. Easier to write 'em there.

Here's a generall listing from google:

http://directory.google.com/Top/Com...nti-Virus/?tc=1

McAfee's eval copy
]http://download.mcafee.com/eval/evaluate2.asp?

Norton's
http://nct1.digitalriver.com/0001/

Do keep in mind that NEW virii require the software manufacturers to write a new antivirus description/innoculation. All the packages available have at least a year's updates available, last I checked.

It's a repeat topic, but it's good to inform our users of such, while they continue to grow so rapidly.

my $0.02,

dvnc

 

[BigJim]

To give you some perspective, the forums e-mail address has been geting 10 to 20 copies of this virus a day. It's a pain in the arse.

Myriads

MYRIADS!!!!!!!!! Man you have no idea how impressed you just made me! Maybe spreading english spellings to Americans is the true virus on the TMF.

Now all I have to do is work out what the hell all these computer experts are talking about when they're describing safeguards and translate it into english for all us techno-flids. 😀

And Ray, can you please tell me who that grl is in your gif? I'm going wired with curiosity here. Did you film her in the park, or what?🙂