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Evaman Worm Attacks Email Servers
An anonymous reader writes "CoolTechZone is reporting that the mail servers of various popular email services such as Hotmail and Yahoo to be bogged down with a new worm, code-named Evaman.
The headings are common to the ones users encounter everyday in their inbox - "Failed Transaction" or "Delivery Failure". This worm has the potential to take control over Windows 95, 98, ME, 2000, XP, NT, and Windows Server 2003."
We should be OK. The virus requires people to open the attachement on the mail in order for it to work. So unless people are stupid enough to open attachements after we've been telling them for years and years and after countless virus plauges not to we should all be fine... .......
Oh God!! We're all DOOOOOMED!!!!!
May the Maths Be with you!
is that the mail(at least the variant that I receieved) has a fake little message about the attatchment being scanned for viruses. Are people that gullible and/or stupid? I would hope people would be smart enough to realize that it's really easy to type a message saying that something has been scanned for viruses.
Ugh, it's not even like you have to be computer savvy to figure these things out. Do people open their houses to random drifters who say they work for the city and need to do some work without at least checking for ID?
Actually, yeah, they do, oy.,,what a world...
Upon more investigation -- noting that every article on the page is written by the same person, and that person is the person who registered the domain, and nearly every article contains the same info (and sometimes the same text) as available from other widely known sources -- I wonder whether this site exists only to generate ad revenues from people who trip over it. Well, thanks to SlashDot, it's payday for Mr. Hora.
Am I part of the core demographic for Swedish Fish?
Well, I don't see myself as a 'Windows Defender' but I've never gotten a virus/worm/trojan on windows, and I _do_ use IE, for many years, on many machines, on many kinds of network.
There is some sort of parallel 'windows world' in which all windows machines are worm-riddled and uptimes are measured in days if not hours and commercial software randomly crashes and free software is not available, and clearly a number of slashdotters live there. But there's also the rest of the world in which windows stuff mostly is available and works.
Disclaimer: The firewall remains the most important part of a network
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
as well as the marketshare argument.
Which falls flat on its face when you compare IIS and Apache
This worm has the potential to take control over Windows 95, 98, ME, 2000, XP, NT, and Windows Server 2003.
I prefer to be explicit when telling people which software it affects.
This worm has the potential to take control over Microsoft Windows 95, Microsoft Windows 98, Microsoft Windows ME, Microsoft Windows 2000, Microsoft Windows XP, Microsoft Windows NT, and Microsoft Windows Server 2003.
You see my point?
Can anybody tell me why executing programs people send you by email is a desirable feature anyway? Which users does it actually benefit? It seems to me there are more users that would benefit from ancient Egyptian heiroglyphic spell-checking than executing programs recieved via email without having to save them and mark them as executable first.
It will affect you. It spreads by email. You recieve email. It's disguised as delivery failure notifications, which are a pain to filter, unless you want to keep the legtimate ones.
I filter my email at the SERVER not at the client, so its trivial to filter since I can write my own rule sets. I am not talking about yahoo/hotmail which I don't use.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
I quit using my yahoo email b/c of spam, but I took a look to see if I had said worm. Unfortunately all I have is the usual:
.
PAIN MEDS.. FILL and SHIP Directly to Your DOORSTEP *
Special Offer Claim 250 Full-Color
Business Cards FREE!
©ÉT ±d©ÊÍ ^_^
The Career News
Finding a job on the internet . .
My Home Finance Direct Homeowners $ave Money Now
Pet Care Make Your Pets Happy
Visit Our City Win a Dream Summer Vacation
Of course running Linux/Mac at home I needed worry (as much) about viruses.
PCBCW$E
free ipod and free gmail!
I am not saying that Linux is boolit proof, its just not the target. That said, there are some fundamental differences in the two that make it easier to secure a Linux box. Both can be made as insecure as each other, its just easier to make Linux secure because of the way permissions are done. This is true of any Unix like OS.
;)
Also, I block all traffic incoming and outgoing on port 25 on the router, and use webmail for the company, so infected boxes can't spread the love even IF they get infected. Yes, with a Linux router
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
> windows - security through patches
> linux - security through smugness
Linux is patched quite frequently, actually.
> surely it's just a matter of time before someone writes a devastating linux virus?
Surely. But it's going to take rather more than one to make Linux look as bad as Windows does.
> i'm not bashing linux / mac / or even (*shock*) windows - but the attitude of "it's only windows users - i'm safe" really irriates me - it seems shortsighted to say the least
Statistically speaking, Linux and Mac users are much safer than Windows users.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
It's a touch sad though, because people start quoting news sources like the inquirer who're in turn quoting another article as their source of info.
I guess this And the sky shall turn red, the sea will turn to jam and so on should have raised a red flag or two, but honestly, news articles are so dubios that i've become jaded. I don't bother to do much more than scan for content because i know i'll read another article saying/spinning things in a completely different fasion.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
And don't tell me it's just because MS is a bigger target. Linux runs between 35%-40% of the worlds servers
Yes SERVERS. Servers dont tend to have stupid users with email clients on them running whatever they are told to by the email message, which is exactly how this (and many before it) spread. Thats the difference here.
(Yes I know Linux is more proactively secure, but its security still doesnt protect from user stupidity. And before anyone says that users wouldnt be stupid to chmod permissions or untar a tgz with permissions retained, think about the recent worm that required users to enter a freaking password to unzip and run it. That one got around fairly well.)
I can't see Microsoft allowing their source code out, even if encrypted in source form. Even very complex keys can be extracted, given time and enough power. It is very likely that MS source would be considered high enough value that it would be attempted. Also, with that many copies of the source around, all identical except for the encryption, key attacks are much easier. If MS compiles it, then the question is how many years are you willing to wait for your copy to be compiled?
If you run a 30,000 node network, how do you manage all 30,000 unique copies of the OS, productivity, and all the batch files used to mange all 30,000 systems?
And what would keep mal-ware writers from inserting their malware at the comple-the-source stage for each and every processor? Can you imagine how long it would take a P4 400Mhz to compile Windows XP? (If each and every CPU has it's own unique key, then each and every system will need to compile the OS. Also, what about SMP systems? Do the CPUs in that system each get their own key? That would mean the OS would have to be compiled for each cpu in that box!)
No, adding a layer of encrypition isn't the answer. It adds complexity and possible vectors without really addressing the problem.
Like spam, viruses are not a technical problem. It's a human problem.
Oh, and you can get open source A/V software. Clam A/V.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
Never ceases to amaze me how people will continually open attachments. We warn them at work verbally, we send out memos, we post cheezy posters, we alter default mail client behaviour to make it harder. STILL some users insist on opening executable attachments. I will never understand what compells them to do so. I understand the first time, you don't know, and it is a nasty supprise, no problem. However after the third time a computer support person has chewed you out, you've AGAIN gotten the memo, etc, people still insist on doing it.
The really scary thing is we have a virus scanner running on our mail server to filter this. However it is only updated once a day max, and the company (Sophos, not what we want but it's a government contract) isn't always on the stick with the updates. So people will do this within the first 48 hours of a new worm comming out. I hate to think what it would be like without filtering.
Standard issue cars are more equal than OS's, currently.
This is a case more like the dude pulled over on the highway by a cop for weaving. Turned out he wasn't drunk, even buzzed, just that he had no steering wheel, instead he was using vice-grips clamped directly onto the steering column.
As far as M$ and use of its software on the Internet go, there have been several small children shouting that the emporer has no clothes. And now that I mention it, why, yes. It does appear that the emperor has no clothes.
Don't let your ideology bit you on the head, drop M$ and move on.
your quote
"Windows isn't a blackhole for viruses as some people like to overemphasize it as. Windows is a blackhole for people who do silly things like run ridiculous software or click on attachments when they shouldn't."
So my response would be, except for the untold millions of people who ARE running a windows blackhole machine that sucks in every virus, worm, trojan, malware and spyware out there. Which is most of them. They are by far the largest users demographically on the internet, and it goes across national boundaries, and inside practically all businesses out there. It's a HUGE problem, it destroys the global economy to the tune of billions a year, it causes no one really knows how many wasted man hours of effort to try and keep it cleaned up. It is not a minimal problem because a relatively few people comparatively speaking are able to keep their machines organized better.
I think it's just time to admit reality. Windows as designed is just not a good choice for use on the internet. It is acceptable for use on closed intranets and as a standalone work machine or game machine that is not connected to the net.
Despite the availability of updates, patches, service packs,third party programs, thousands of news articles, advisories, etc, to attempt to divert or stop all the various insecure functions related to MS products in general,going to all the windows users out there through generation after generation of windows products, it is still broken for the purpose of being on the internet. You CANNOT just dismiss verifiable anecdotal data, nor can you dismiss the fact that human beings run this stuff, which means this stuff gets run with normal human levels of ability and interest.
Running pure windows now has negated the entire concept of "easy to use, fun, profitable, useful for this purpose" that they push and definetly imply (although their legal disclaimer claims otherwise, I call that a pure outright lie) their software as, because any joe random user now has to become a part time security guru, when that just shouldn't be necessary, not in 2004 it shouldn't.
Same as linux was not a suitable OS for joe everybody when it required being an unix command line guru just in order to run it. It was useful for a very small number of people in specific applications back when. that's true, too, it wasn't for joe everybody. Windows is pushed good for joe everybody, true, it's fine..just not on the internet. Time to just face facts and move on with it, it doesn't pay to cling to what in essence, and not meant to flame just to state a fact, the fantasy that MS is a practical choice if your computing requires being on the internet, personal or business, not if all you want to do is be on the internet and not be a semi professional security expert. It's just broken for that purpose, generally speaking. pointing out individual examples of where it isn't does nothing to take away the reality that in millions and millions of cases it is in fact, a blackhole, except with a definition twist, it sucks them in like a blackhole analogy, then multiplies them exponentially, then spits them back out again.
For every incredibly secure windows installation out there, there are huge numbers of totally broken and insecure examples, that's the real bottom line, and this despite years and years of efforts to make that "not so". I would guess it it is at least 100 to 1, insecure to secure, or some such huge lopsided number like that. Might even be 1000 to 1, no one really knows. It's huge though. And every new version iof the OS and browser and email thingee and SP was supposed to "fix that" and it never has really. It's because of how human beings use computers, and most human beings are not, and will not become, full time or significant part time, security gurus. If this reality is not admitted to, the problem will always exist, and just get worse, not better.