to prevent worms from using address book

[proudusa]

Wondering if this actually works (was sent to one of the employees in the office):

HOW TO PROTECT YOUR ADDRESS BOOK!
>
> I learned a computer trick today that's really ingenious in it
> simplicity.
> As you may know, when/if a worm virus gets into your computer it heads
> straight for your email address book, and sends itself to everyone in
> there,
> thus infecting all your friends and associates. This trick won't keep the
> virus from getting into your computer, but it will stop it from using
> your
> address book to spread further, and it will alert you to the fact, that
> the
> worm has gotten into your system.
>
> 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.

 

[GoldenEternity]

I've seen some discussion about these sort of tricks on bugtraq, you might want to look over their archives.

Generally, the answer is that it won't help. Most viruses won't hang on a single contact, and they may not parse the contact list in order anyway.

You'd be better off disabling visual basic scripting support in outlook during installation, running a modern antivirus program and just not clicking on anything that comes your way.

 

[tazman99]

Nope, those steps wont help: its a "hoax", just to get more people to send emails. The big problem nowadays is people forwarding viruses warnings to delete files or change settings...usually these changes hinder your PC! Always check with Norton AntiVirus-great website!

Address Book change is a hoax:

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

Norton:

http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/