Have any other ladies been receiving e-mails that when clicked on immediately a screen pops up saying safe to disk.  I'm sure this part is coming from my anti virus software.  I immediately cancel and delete the whole thing.  One came saying the attached was the  fix it for the Kleez virus or something like that.  I deleted it ASAP than rec'd one about loans,etc.  Anyway I had about 7 like this in the last few days.  I decided to upgrade my Virus protection to the 2002 version.  Sure enough when it was all in place in came up with 2 infected files and that Kleez one was in there.  I never even opened that one.  Ladies beware someone is out there trying to kill or invade our computers.  Are there any programs out there to detect something being planted etc.

I'ts everybody Cheridan, not just you ladies.  I've been receiving similar emails recently, some of them saying they are a patch for some virus or something similar.  I just delete them without opening.

With all the real and hoax viruses going around (like the one that tells you to delete some legit files we all have buried in the OS that we didn't know about), I just assume the worst and put them in the trash.  I'm certainly not going to download something just because someone says it's a patch- talk about self-inflicted wounds.

Everyone,

Yes, I have also been getting e-mails that are 118K in size. My suggestion is if you do not know the person and you see that the e-mail is 118K or larger don't even open it.

Microsoft’s Hotmail has McAfee embedded in their e-mail system but I have noticed at times that their .DAT files are not updated because I have been able to open certain attachments that were infected and detected by my Antivirus software so don’t rely always on Hotmail’s McAfee attachment checker-virus-remover but get your own protection.

Also, update your virus .DAT files on a weekly basis. Just this week McAfee updated its' virus files twice.

Always be on the defensive when opening e-mails. This seems to be a trend that will continue increasing.

Be careful!

Seth A/K/A The Doctor

-- Modified on 4/27/2002 5:59:47 PM

NRM is right!  I often get a large majority of spam emails (10 of 12 first thing this morning) which I delete without ever reading.  As the "save-to-disk or open-from-present-location issue"...I do neither, even when such an email is from a friend--I've known of cases where friends have opened such emails from other friends, gotten a virus as a result & ended up spreading it unknowingly.

Perhaps all these emails I delete are simply "legitimate spam" (if there is such a thing) & maybe I'm overly cautious in what I do.  But while I have very little computer expertise, I do know that almost all virus are spread through emails & that no shield can catch them all.  I'd much rather be safe than sorry.

Quite specifically, emails containing an alleged patch for the Klez virus (a nasty piece of work if ever there was one) ARE, in point of fact, the one of the variations of the Klez virus (probably "H.")  Anyone who has opened one of these or, depending on a whether they are running any IE version below 6.0 AND have not downloaded the Microsoft patch intended to deal with this flaw in their software, even opened the email or had it displayed in their preview window in Outlook or Outlook Express is probably infected.  Symantec has a FixKlez program which can be downloaded from their website and I strongly suggest downloading it, rebooting the computer in safe mode, and running it.

I apologize for those awful sentences.  Let's try to extract the salient points.

With many recent viruses it is not necessary to open the actual attachment.  Opening the email or having it appear in the preview screen will cause a self-extracting routine in the virus to launch itself.

The first thing I did, when I learned this, was to reconfigure my Outlook Express to eliminate the preview screen.  Versions of IE 5.1 and earlier have inherent security weaknesses which allow this to happen.  The Hewlett Packard pavilion desktop I was using during the Nimda outbreak (which is when I first became aware of this possiblity) was running IE 5.1, the second thing I did was go to "Tools," "Windows Update."  This allowed me to download a patch that fixed this vulnerability.  Being inherently skeptical, I STILL did not reinstall the preview window.  I will live the rest of my life without it.

I now mainly use a Toshiba Satellite laptop with IE 6.0 which lacks this vulnerability.  Despite this, and despite the fact that I rarely open emails even if I know the person sending them if they have attachments (or jokes - I have as much of a sense of humor as anyone - but haven't we all read enough internet jokes?) I STILL managed to get infected with W32.Klez.H.  This became immediately apparent when my laptop shut down every 10 minutes or so and would not reboot (except in safe mode) for several hours.  After letting it rest for a while (and researching the Symantec site while at work on my company owned piece of crap (but at least not infected) Dell, I downloaded FixKlez.exe on the Toshiba and saved it to a folder on my desktop.  I rebooted in safe mode and ran it.  Ever since, despite multiple emails which (per Norton Anti-Virus) contained Klex.G or .H, I have remained virus free.

Klez is a particularly nasty one and has to be taken seriously.

One other suggestion.  Outlook and Outlook express can be configured to strip off any attachments which might be viruses.  These would include attachments with .vbs, .exe, .scr and other extentions.  No big loss.  I cannot think of any reason someone would be sending me an executable file unless it was another stupid joke.

I DO have a good sense of humor.  I REALLY DO.  I also have comic DVDs ranging from Ernie Kovaks to AbFab.  Those serve my humor needs.  I don't need jokes over the internet.

Go to

http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/Default.htm

And click product updates. Download whatever critical patches it says you need.

Also, always be running antivirus software. Norton or Macaffee are both fine, but make sure that you update the virus definitions at least weekly.

Oh, and all those funny emails are the virus itself trying to infect your computer.

I feel like a dummy!!  I am a new computer user, this is my first computer ever.  I have gotten two emails.  They say its regarding my ad, so I opened them!  Probabally a big mistake.  One of the attachments I opened was a picture of a generic looking tv saying National Geographic.  The other attachment was a picture of a digital camera.

What do viruses do?  From now on I wont open up any emails like that again. Thanks for the information on anti viruses, and if you have any additional info please let me know.

Basically, don't open ANYTHING.

BTW - I have modified this twice because I seem this afternoon to have lost the ability to spell.

-- Modified on 4/27/2002 5:00:12 PM

I know the person who sent it to me AND I was BOTH expecting the attachment and knew what it was.

Even then, before I open it I save it to my hard drive and scan it with an antivirus software. But for people who are not experienced with computer I would say NEVER open any attachments ever.

What can a virus do? Essentially a virus is by definition a computer program designed to perform a malicious task. The most common will do things like corrupt your operating system, erase your hard drive, secretly take over your computer and allow someone else to control it remotely. Typically all things you don't want. In general the more sophiticated virus's do their thing by exploiting vulnerabilities in your operating system, which is why it is important to go to that microsoft site I mentioned and load the latest patches (these fix the known vulnerabilities so the virus cant work).

A virus will also change some files on your computer so that even if you try to get rid of it, it can reinfect you when you reboot or things like that. That is why it is important to always have a virus scanning program running to protect your computer.

I am partial to Norton Antivirus 2002, but MacAfee is good too.