Virus stopper???

[chesneyj]

I received the following in an e-mail and I was wondering if anyone else had seen this suggestion.

"To avoid spreading computer viruses, create a contact in your email address book with the name "!0000" with no email address in the details. This contact will then show up as your first contact.
If a virus attempts to do a "send all" on your contact list, your PC will put up an error message saying that "The message could not be sent. One or more recipients do not have an email address. Please check your Address Book and make sure all the recipients have a valid email address."
You then click on OK and the offending (virus) message would not have been sent to anyone. Of course no changes have been made to your original contacts list.
The offending (virus) message may then be automatically stored in your "Drafts" or "Outbox" folder. Go in there and delete the offending message.
Problem is solved and virus is not spread. Try this and pass it on to your email contacts."

Is this for real or is it just fluff?
Brenda Sherrod
Network Administrator
Alliance Architects, Inc.

 

[Dreamboat]

It's BS, Brenda.

Woody (

http://www.wopr.com

a/k/a Woody's Lounge) warned about this in a recent newsletter.

Pretty much, email viruses use Windows or Visual Basic scripting files (they run automatically). Most people don't "view" their file extensions, so the virus creator renames a prettyfile.vbs or prettyfile.wfs file to something like prettyfile.jpg.vbs or prettyfile.jpg.wfs, so that when you view it, all you see is that it's a harmless little JPEG file.

I really don't know how it would put the average work user out by doing the following (I suspect it won't), but the average home user could be wise to do it:

Open Windows Explorer. Hit Tools-Folder Options. Click on the File Types tab. Find each type, wfs and vbs. For each one, you select it, hit EDIT. Then, you'll note that the default action is to OPEN the file. Well, you can change that to EDIT or you can remove the file type altogether.

Of course, this does not guarantee you freedom from virii. Nor do I have any idea why this is not published all around the internet. Also, apparently, this would not have helped avoid Nimda because, according to McAfee, that email message did not have to be opened and the attachment did not need to be opened for the virus to run.

http://www.VictimPhotos.com

http://www.PiersonTech.com

Brainbench MVP for Microsoft Word
techsupportgirl@home.com

 

[chesneyj]

Thank you for the information. I had a feeling that it was a BS posting. I'll try the File Type suggestion. It may help keep some things from showing up. Brenda Sherrod
Network Administrator
Alliance Architects, Inc.