Is someone sending Win viruses to me?

[Blue Velvet]

Over the past couple of months, I've been getting 'returned' mail from various sources, except I never sent the mail in the first place.

They always have an attachment.
Some of the attachment names are called things like:

• barbican_6357.EML.pif
• im_shocked_1251.DOC.scr

and are usually 55 kb or so...
Of course, these messages are trashed immediately.

Here's a recent example:

----------------------------

This mail was generated automatically.
More info about --BARBICAN-- under: http://www.barbican.org.uk

-------
Occured_Errors:

44.51.46.57_failed_after_I_sent_the_message.
% 518: Remote_host_said:_delivery_error
% 447: Giving_up_on_44.51.46.57.
% 434: This_account_has_been_discontinued_[#487].

End
-------

The full mail is attached.

Auto_Mail.System: [barbican]

--------



Any clues?

 

[Mertzen]

yup .. those have a 99% chance of being a virus. Don't be believe the returned or the non complete messages. Delete asap.

 

[rogerw]

yeah, ive been getting a few of these for the last 4 months. On a couple of email accounts but not.mac though. Attatchments mainly zips. I had a message from macunlimited.net saying my computer (i book) is being used as a proxy server sending out tons of spam. cant see how though and nothing shows up on virex-all clear.

 

[Blue Velvet]

...I had a message from macunlimited.net saying my computer (i book) is being used as a proxy server sending out tons of spam. cant see how though and nothing shows up on virex-all clear.

Could the same thing happen to me?
I'm still on dial-up and get a dynamic (?) IP address, I think... any way of making sure?

I'm a bit vague on this side of computers, I'm afraid... so be gentle

 

[jsw]

If you're on dial-up and using a Mac, it is exceedingly unlikely that you're sending spam. Often, the "returned" messages are themselves spam, or your IP and/or email account name is being used on forged messages that you never actually sent.

 

[rogerw]

Could the same thing happen to me?
I'm still on dial-up and get a dynamic (?) IP address, I think... any way of making sure?

I'm a bit vague on this side of computers, I'm afraid... so be gentle

except that this is not happening. Its just another version of a virus email with an attatchment (again exe/zip etc). These are web based email accounts that i get these on (hotmail etc). What email accounts are you getting these from (hotmail?) Just delete them.

 

[MarksEvilTwin]

Hmm...

Removed

 

[jsw]

I often wonder the same thing. I get emails like that in my .mac every once in a while, maybe twice a month or so (this is a recent phenomenon, only started in perhaps October). They used to have attachments which looked clearly like viri of some sort. However, now I'm just getting weird emails like that that show no attachment. For example...
____

From: xmxgay@yahoo.com
Date: November 26, 2004 6:30:38 AM EST

(there was no subject or any content in the email)
_______

From: Hector@hnpost.hniri.go.jp
Subject: bustled
Date: January 1, 2005 4:34:43 AM EST
To: (my .mac address)@mac.com

plunders
__________

No attachments on either of these! ?? I have to say, I was pretty confused. They got "junked" anyway, no problem to me at all, just weird. What do you all make of it?

Mark

Your ISP might be filtering out viruses for you - stripping them from the mail.

 

[MarksEvilTwin]

Removed

 

[Blue Velvet]

Thanks guys.

I can rest a little easier knowing that at least I'm not responsible for nasssty spam...

 

[James_C]

Could the same thing happen to me?
I'm still on dial-up and get a dynamic (?) IP address, I think... any way of making sure?

I'm a bit vague on this side of computers, I'm afraid... so be gentle

A similar problem happened to me, I use BT internet, and I was quite upset when it first started to happen, so I phoned the support line. Of course I got through to someone who did not understand that Mac's don't get infected. After several attempts to explain that it could not have come from my computer, he then stated that it could have gone through the webmail system that BT use. At that stage BT did not require passwords to send e-mails to their mail server. They now do and I have not seen an bounced virus e-mail from my account since.