Klez, The Virus that Keeps on Giving

kylus writes "Wired is running a story about the continued escapades of the Klez virus, and the damage--both to finances and reputations--that it is leaving behind. Between emails from a dead friend and porno spam appearing to be sent from a priest, I think "Don't Believe the 'From' Line" is the correct lesson." God bless microsoft email viruses. I'm on a modem for a few weeks and downloading countless megs of mail viruses is extremely frusterating. Course I'm still getting sircams.

Comments

The average user?

[marekk]

From the Wired article:

"Anytime you have a virus that is not easily identifiable visually, it tends to linger," Rod Fewster, Australian representative for antiviral application NOD32, said. "SirCam and Klez both vary the subject lines of the e-mails they send, which makes it hard for the average user to spot."

Unfortunately, I'm sure the average user can't spot any e-mail viruses, let alone ones that change their subject line. While Outlook/Outlook Express greatly facilitates the spread of these viruses, a large part of the problem lies in the fact that too many people click on attachments and/or don't run proactive AntiVirus software on their system.

Re: Really, how common are these things?

[ttyp0]

Quite common. If you just sit and post on slashdot all day, then no, you probably aren't much of a target for virii. However, I run 3 large websites, active on 10 mailing lists and send close to 50 emails a day. My email address is spread all over the Internet like a bad case of herpes. In return I get close to 30 - 40 infected emails a day. That was before I installed a virus scanner on my mail server.

Re:Pornographic attachments from priests?

[xZAQx]

Pretty funny.

Keep in mind the hundreds of priests now being wrongfully prosecuted due to a stererotype that is spreading like wildfire. Bear in mind how it is ruining their lives.

I love how on slashdot, insults and slander made about religion are modded as funny, yet if I were to say, "Porn from black people? What was it, pictures of fried chicken?" I'd be modded as a troll. It's all ignorance; it's all slander; it's all hatred. Stop modding self-righteous science-worshipping trolls like the parent up.

Although, I'm sure that now I'll be modded as a troll. Whatever.

Dare to think for yourself.

I'm impressed.

[EvilNight]

The person who wrote this spent some time thinking of the way to do the most damage. This virus nails you to the wall the instant it infects someone who just has your email address. That was some vicious thinking. The problems caused by this virus actually extend into social engineering. Pure genius.

Makes you wonder what else they'll come up with...

Maybe someday we'll have security, and patch this sort of thing...

Another argument for CONFIRMING list subscribe

[Seth Finkelstein]

Quoth the article:

People signing up for newsletters and mailing lists that they never subscribed to has been a major source of frustration for both users and the list owners.

If Klez happens to send an e-mail "from" a user to an e-mail list's automatic subscribe address, the list software assumes the e-mail is a valid subscription request and begins sending mail to the user.

This is another reason why all lists should confirm subscriptions. I'm seeing the Klem-virus beating on my own mailing list, and I'm very glad I spent the time to get the software to do confirmations of subscriptions.

Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)

Fool! use IMAP

[benploni]

IMAP would allow to get all the email, minus the atachments. You can pick which attachments you want. People, read the IMAP spec. It offers so much that ppl dont take advantage of.