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Microsoft Virus Spam: SoBig.F
If you're being barraged with Microsoft virus spam emails today, this story notes that it's a flare-up of an older Microsoft virus in a new, improved form. Yay for trustworthy computing.
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'nuff said.
NO MORE GOODTIMES!
There's a new virus that will re-write your hard drive. Not only that, but it will scramble any disks that are even close to your computer. It will recalibrate your refrigerator's coolness setting so all your ice cream goes melty. It will demagnetize the strips on all your credit cards, screw up the tracking on your television and use subspace field harmonics to scratch any CD's you try to play.
It will give your ex-girl or boyfriend your new phone number. It will mix Kool-aid into your fishtank. It will drink all your wine and leave its socks out on the coffee table when there's company coming over. It will put a dead squirrel in the back pocket of your good pants and hide your car keys when you are late for work.
Goodtimes will make you fall in love with a penguin. It will give you nightmares about circus midgets. It will pour sugar in your gas tank and shave off both your eyebrows while dating your girl or boyfriend behind your back and billing the dinner and hotel room to your Discover card.
It will seduce your grandmother. It does not matter if she is dead; such is the power of Goodtimes. It reaches out beyond the grave to sully those things we hold most dear.
It moves your car randomly around parking lots so you can't find it. It will kick your dog. It will leave libidinous messages on your boss's voice mail in your voice! It is insidious and subtle. It is dangerous and terrifying to behold. It is also a rather interesting shade of mauve.
Goodtimes will give you Dutch Elm disease. It will leave the toilet seat up. It will make a batch of Methamphetamine in your bathtub and then leave bacon cooking on the stove while it goes out to chase gradeschoolers with your new snowblower.
Goodtimes will prompt your mother to call on Friday and Saturday nights for two months after you make a new girlfriend/boyfriend. It will place your wallet and keys on an obscure shelf in the basement. It will emulate your face and stare into the neighbor's bathroom window.
Goodtimes has been linked to cancer in laboratory mice. 9 out of 10 dentists recommend Goodtimes.
Goodtimes will make your bloomers shrink two sizes, and it will make you gain 15 pounds. If this results in a wedgie, then Goodtimes will leave a nasty skid mark.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
... there's an ad for MS Small Business Server 2003 at the top of the article.
It's like advertizing space on a blue screen.
This space for rent.
This thing is slamming my mail server. Some of them get stripped of the virus by the time they hit my machine, but having to deal w/ several hundred 100K messages an hour is slowing my machine down.
Has a virus disabled the full-stop (period) key on your keyboard ?
I have one machine I leave outside the firewall and never patch to serve as a virus cesspit! I've got quite a little ecosystem going on there!
Maybe you're the guy contributing the crappy code, seeing you type like your fingers are wrapped in chicken wire.
Sobig.B appeared on 2003 May 19 and was programmed to deactivate on May 31.
Sobig.C appeared on 2003 June 01 and was programmed to deactivate on June 08.
Sobig.D appeared on 2003 June 18 and was programmed to deactivate on July 02.
Sobig.E appeared on 2003 June 09 and was programmed to deactivate on July 14.
Sobig.F appeared on 2003 Aug 19 and was programmed to deactivate on Sept 10.
It seems like the Sobig release schedule is more consistent and on-time than ... well ... the software release schedules of a major company we love to hate ;-)
How does a virus with the name "SoBig" spread???
;)
Maybe I have a dirty mind, but I gotta think that most Spam filters would catch that one.
I'm sorry, that didn't make any sense at all. Could you please replace your keyboard with one that has periods and commas on it?
Hey I can't blame them... when I was at a university I was hammered pretty much every day.
Johnkoerner.com
More copies of Klez than I can count came out of Duke, and ended up in my inbox. Perhaps the Blue Devils could spend less time camping out for tickets, and more time fixing what's broke.
And in other news... Microsoft announced today that, thanks to a Bill Gates Declaration From On High (tm), every line of code in every Microsoft product, dating back to the company's foundation, has magically, spontaneously, and retroactively fixed itself. This has rendered all of Microsoft's code absolutely secure and error-free. And thanks to the mystical nature of these fixes, end users and sysadmins don't have to patch their systems!
Grow up, Michael.
This sig intentionally left blank.
I've gotten 320 infected messages today. I'm actually going to be looking forward to getting back to generic viagra ads in a couple of days when this dies down.
The Glass is Too Big: My Take on Things
what does the F stand for? i can think of a few canidates that have exactly 4 letters.
It stands for the letter after 'e', dumbass.
.nws and .eml, i think these were the nimda vectors from a couple years ago.
Advocating security through obscurity? On SLASHDOT? tsk tsk. :p
In times like these, it is helpful to remember that there have always been times like these. - Paul Harvey
Wow, this must be an old virus if it is written in Fortran.
Those are real. MS doesn't know how to run a mailing list.
I'm Canadian. My economy is based entirely on the export of beaver meat and maple syrup.
"Just wondering... Why are viruses programmed to deactivate?"
Built in obsolescence? Maybe the writer always wants you to have the latest version or something. This also reminds me of the recent musings of a software company we love to hate ;-)
Nope. Some government is behind this, either U.S. or China is my guess. The goal is to sharpen cyber warfare skills. Neither country wants to cause significant harm on the other unless there is a real war, in light of the fact that we are dependent on each other economically.
"So how did I get 5000 new messages... and my last name is very common"
As you can see, Mr. Anderson - we've had our eye on you for.. some time now.
I feel so lonely :'(
Everytime an address book virus attacks, I am left out. Does this mean I don't have any friends?
Sure you get 5000 emails... rub it in, Mr Popular :)