Virus directed at Appraisers?????

[Caterina Platt]

OK, my suspicous little appraiser mind may be working overtime on this one but....

I just received two emails with the Exploit-MIME.gen.b virus. with the subject line of something to the effect of FW:tntplatt, Welcome to my Hometown from an address of 'Contacts' and another with the address of 'Appraisers' subject line Meeting Notice.

I didn't recognize the sender, and the attachments looked all too much like the virus disguise. One of the attachments was named appraisers forum. Another was named Geomapping source (or something like that)The last and largest attachments were an US.exe and and USupdated.exe. I ran McAfee and guess what...

When I right clicked on the message and looked at the properties, both came from a pdperk@swbell.net. This just did not look like a completely random attack. Everything tried to make it look legit, and directed to an appraiser. Hmmm. Anyone else have this junk in their box?

 

[Head Surfer]

OK, my suspicous little appraiser mind may be working overtime on this one but....

I just received two emails with the Exploit-MIME.gen.b virus. with the subject line of something to the effect of FW:tntplatt, Welcome to my Hometown from an address of 'Contacts' and another with the address of 'Appraisers' subject line Meeting Notice.

I didn't recognize the sender, and the attachments looked all too much like the virus disguise. One of the attachments was named appraisers forum. Another was named Geomapping source (or something like that)The last and largest attachments were an US.exe and and USupdated.exe. I ran McAfee and guess what...

When I right clicked on the message and looked at the properties, both came from a pdperk@swbell.net. This just did not look like a completely random attack. Everything tried to make it look legit, and directed to an appraiser. Hmmm. Anyone else have this junk in their box?

Just so you and everyone else will know, the forum email system does not have file attachment capability. So it would be impossible for a virus to be sent by the forum.

However anyone can forge headers, email addresses, and the like.

Do this: FORWARD the entire email to me and let me examine it. I guarantee you I can tell you exactly where it came from after examining the full headers, especially after I run it through some spam analysis software.

After I do that, I will report it to the sender's Internet provider and have their account shut down.

 

[Caterina Platt]

Dear Wayne,

Never did I suspect the real 'Appraiser's Forum', just someone trying to make their email look legit enough for me (or one of the other forumites) to open it. I know you'd never in a million years do something like that or leave your system open and vulnerable for unscrupulous types.

I have since had to quarantine these files since cleaning them didn't do the trick. I'll try to figure out a way to get them forwarded.

Thanks loads, and sorry for any unintended blame. I didn't realize my post left that unclear until you pointed that out.

 

[Nancy in Friday Harbor]

Cat,
Thanks for the "heads up"!!

Wayne,
Maybe this warning should go on the general forum so those of us who don't check the Tech forum on a daily basis are warned....