Address Book trick for stopping email virus?

[achilleus]

I got the below email from a friend, and he suggested using this to stop worms that try and use the Address Book to email themselves...Take a look at it...It mentions that if the first attempt fails, the worm will go no further...Is that accurate?...What do you think of this idea?...



Here's what you do: first, open your address book and click on "new contact" just as you would do if you were adding a new friend to your list of email addresses. In the window where you would type your friend's first name, type in AAAAAAA. In the window below where it prompts you to enter the new email address, type in WormAlert@somewhere.com . Then complete everything by clicking add, enter, ok, etc.

Now, here's what you've done and why it works: The "name" AAAAAAA will be placed at the top of your address book as entry #1. This will be where the worm will start in an effort to send itself to all your friends. But when it tries to send itself to AAAAAAA, it will be undeliverable because of the phony email address you entered (WormAlert@somewhere.com). If the first attempt fails (which it will because of the phony address), the worm goes no further and your friends will not be infected.

Here's the second great advantage of this method: If an email cannot be delivered, you will be notified of this in your InBox almost immediately. Hence, if you ever get an email telling you that an email addressed to WormAlert@somewhere.com could not be delivered, you know right away that you have the worm virus in your system. AJ
SA
HS

 

[Kento]

"The "name" AAAAAAA will be placed at the top of your address book as entry #1. This will be where the worm will start in an effort to send itself to all your friends. If the first attempt fails (which it will because of the phony address), the worm goes no further and your friends will not be infected."

"Is that accurate?"

Sorry but that's not accurate. Believe me when I say that "trick" will almost never work so don't ever rely on it. Here's what Symantec and Mcafee have to say about it:

http://vil.nai.com/vil/content/v_99213.htm

http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/trick.address.book.entry.html

 

[FatesWebb]

yeah it doesnt or wont work

For one most viruses these days dont just look to the windows address book they look at all files on your hdd to get the email addresses. for two YOU GET the undeliverable only if the virus uses your email address, which viruses like klez and probably most from here on out wont use your email address so you wont get a error and NEITHER WILL THE VIRUS ITSELF. and finally the virus has no way of knowing wether or not the mail went or not. well it can tell if there is not a somewhere.com but doesnt know if there is a WormAlert@somewhere.com and really doesnt care. so it just sends the mail and your friends get mail that came from WormAlert@somewhere.com with a virus attached to them... that is what would happen with klez anyways your friends would be getting viruses from WormAlert@somewhere.com or some other address in your address book or on your hdd FatesWebb

if you do what I suggested it is not my fault...