Basically the way that many PC viruses work is that they get two addresses from the Outlook address book and then send out an email containing the virus. They use one address to send the email to, and the other address they use as the address from which the email appears to come.
So just because you have received an email from someone telling you that you have sent them an email, it doesn�t mean that it actually came from you. In fact nowadays it is extremely unlikely that the address from which a virus appears to come is actually the address from which it did actually come. This means that the automatic responses that come from the virus checking solutions integrated into certain mail servers, sent to the apparent originator of an email containing a virus, are totally pointless. If you get an email of this type you can generally ignore it and just curse the brain-dead IT guys who set the system up to do it. The pif files attached to virus emails contain the actual virus. On a PC you wouldn�t see the extension, which would be a bit of a giveaway, you�d just see a file called �My Details�. It�s not quite as stupid that people double-click on these files given that they don�t know they are PIF files. Of course the vast majority of people wouldn�t know what PIF files are anyway � they�re basically files that tell Windows how to run a non-Windows (ie DOS) executable file, but they can hide a virus payload in them. Nick -- Nick Collingridge - Zapp Computer Consultancy From: Tom Burke <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: "Mac UK" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Fri, 9 Apr 2004 19:57:44 +0100 To: "Mac UK" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Looks Like a Virus... I'm having some strange problems. In the last week I've had a couple of delivery failure reports for undelivered emails, ie emails purporting to be from me that couldn't be delivered. In both cases the 'ReplyTo' address was mine, which is why the DFR came to me, of course. Trouble is, I didn't send emails to either of these two addresses. I've had the original emails back, as well, and in both cases the contents are a bit strange - there's an attachment, called 'my_details.pif', which Mail thinks is 2 bytes in size. I remember .pif files from early Windows days on PCs, but presumably something else may be using that extension now. -- Mac UK is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... 123Inkjets.com <http://lowendmac.com/ad/123inkjets.html> Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> Mac UK list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/mac-uk.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/mac-uk%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Mac? Free email & more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com
