I've received a couple of messages from list members over the last few
days about receiving Waflyfishers email that contained viruses.
According to one of the messages the virus was identified (by Norton
Antivirus) as WSCRIPT.KAKWorm.
This follows a message I received a few weeks ago from another list
member indicating that his email server had detected a virus in a list
message; since then I have received periodic responses from that
server that emails have been detected containing a virus called
VBS_KAKWORM.A-M.
I personally have not received any virus warnings on incoming email and
virus scans of my PC have come up clean (using Norton AntiVirus).
Frankly, I'm perplexed. For one, these virus warnings have been
infrequent and very sporadic in nature; days or weeks have transpired
between offending messages. This suggests that the source is limited
to only one or two posters.
Also, very, very few list messages have had attachments. I'm not an
expert on this subject, but my understanding is that email viruses must
reside in an email attachment - not the email message itself - to be
transmitted from machine to machine. No attachment - no file to run (or
Word document or Excel file macro to run) - no infection to the receiving
PC.
Here's what I suggest:
- First, anyone who receives a list message that contains a virus,
please forward the entire message to me directly, at
[EMAIL PROTECTED] Please include on the subject line "WaFlyfishers
List Virus Attached", so that I know what I'm receiving before I open it.
Include in your message body any additional information about the
offending email, including who the original poster was, name and nature
of the virus, date and time the message was received, etc. Messages
saying "I received an alert from my email server that a message from
[EMAIL PROTECTED] contained a virus" are not enough, since
they don't idenfify the original source - the person who posted the
offending message to waflyfishers in the first place. Hopefully the
additional detail will allow me to identify the source of the viruses and
work with the "offender(s)" to correct the problem.
- Second, please configure your email programs to send ALL postings
to the list as Plain Text (in Outlook Express this can be done by
clicking on the Format button and selecting Plain Text). This should
eliminate any possibility of a virus being transmitted via (potentially
executeable) HTML Text. (You should be using Plain Text for email list
postings anyhow, since HTML and other embedded format modes
cannot be read by some member's PC's).
- And last, please, please, please INSTALL AND USE REGULARLY a
decent virus checker program with regularly updated virus definition files.
Seriously, if you're not checking for viruses, you're headed for a world of
misery - and risking inflicting misery for your friends and associates.
Viruses are everywhere and they're getting nastier and more virulent
every day!
Let's work together to stamp this problem out!!
Any questions or comments about this virus issue, please email me
directly at [EMAIL PROTECTED]
-Wes
Wes Neuenschwander
Seattle, WA
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
