Virus Warning!!!!!!

Received this in an e-mail this morning......

I checked with Norton Anti-Virus, and they are gearing up
for this virus!

I checked snopes.com , and it is for real!! http://www.snopes.com/
computer/virus/postcard.asp

Get this E-mail message sent around to your contacts ASAP.

PLEASE FORWARD THIS WARNING AMONG FRIENDS, FAMILY AND CONTACTS!

You should be alert during the next few days. Do not open any
message with an attachment entitled 'Invitation' OR ONE CALLED
'POSTCARD,'
Regardless of who sent it to you. It is a virus which opens an
Olympic Torch OR A POSTCARD IMAGE, which 'burns' the whole hard disc
C of
your computer. This virus will be received from someone who has your
e-mail address in his/her contact list. This is the reason why you
need to
send this e-mail to all your contacts. It is better to receive this
message 25 times than to receive the virus and open it.

If you receive a mail called 'Invitation' even though sent to you by
a friend, do not open it. Shut down your computer immediately.

This is the worst virus announced by CNN. It has been classified by
Microsoft as the most destructive virus ever. This virus was discovered
by McAfee yesterday, and there is no repair yet for this kind of
virus. This virus simply destroys the Zero Sector of the Hard Disc,
where
the vital information is kept..

I would hope Norton already geared up for it a long time ago--this virus showed up in June 2007. So I'm not sure if someone's started the virus up again (in which case all the antivirus programs should be totally ready for it) or if this was an old email that just found its way to you now.

ecrane, it was just sent to me this morning. I posted it because I thought it was a new virus warning, maybe it has been started again. I am not up to date an all the viruses that are out there, I only hope that the Norton360 that I use is good enough to handle all of them. I am not computer savvy, so wouldn't know a virus from a pea :o)...LOL.......I hope I have not caused any undue worry by posting the warning. I like to share things like this when I get them.


hi princess tammy

It's definitely good to share--I just saw in the Snopes article that the virus was from 2007, so I hope by now the virus programs are up to date and will catch this if someone does open the email (but it's always better to know about the virus and not open the message!)

A question: if I get something in my e-mail like spam or that virus and then click on my "bounce" feature, would that constitute 'opening' ?

I don't think so, all that does is send the email back to the sender. Usually with this sort of thing, just opening the message won't do anything, you have to click on a link in the message and that activates the virus. I think that's how this one works, nothing happens unless you click the link to view your postcard. But anytime I get suspicious messages I usually delete them without even opening them just to be safe.

what is a bounce feature? I don't know how it is done but all of my mail is separated by g-mail. All spam (whatever that is :o) ) is sent to a different in box. I can delete it all at once without having to open anything. I usually do this once a week, and there are normally a few hundred or so spam messages there. maybe posting this was a good thing after all........could learn a lot of important information........


may princess tammy never have spam

bhaugh, 'bounce' is a Mac feature that sends the email back to the sender like it never reached an active address.

My Ex is a computer geek. I asked him about this and he responded:

"Postcard from a family member" is real, the Olympic Torch is a hoax. Your anti virus should protect you from either, and most ISP's filter out known virii."

Just an FYI.

Incredimail also has a "bounce" feature. You can block the sender and then bouce it back. I do this frequently with junk mail. Or do one or the other.

For anti-virus I use Avast which updates every day. I have set my AV program to scan all incoming and outgoing e-mail, including all attachments. So far Avast seems to be working very well, and it is free.

Karen

azrobin, thank you for the info........I guess I get scared when it comes to this whole virus thing. my computer had one last year and had to be wiped clean....so now I panic when I see things like this. I know have Norton360 anti virus, they said it is one of the best ones there is. it scans all incoming mail and web-sites, and also provides Fraud monitoring on every web page you go to. (again, whatever that means). :o)
when i get to my computer in the morning there is always a small window that says background check is complete.....not sure what that means either.

hi princess tammy

Your welcome. He also did research on Anti-Virus software. Norton really isn't ranked up there. I used to use it until he told me to get AVG Free. It's free and is more thorough with mail, IM and websites. Not to mention Window Defender and their Phishing filter.

I have been having problems with my AOl access, I know a virus can cause this but haven't been able to find any with all my scans, and I haven't opened any suspicious emails. The last two days I have done a lot of uninstalling, reinstalling, fix this, fix that, connection recovering you name it.

Eventually I managed somehow through doing their simple reloaded spyware scan, the most simple of simple as I had deleted all the udates to reinstall the Internet connection. I saw '1 item found' just before it shut itself off, there was no way to view this item so I looked at one of the tabs at the top of the search box. There I found another option to do a scan (don't ask what it said), it came up with an error report and would I like to report it, so I did, this requires internet connection. It autoloaded the sign on box, started to load and came up with a 'Guest' sign in which with my screen name and password got me onto the internet.

As a Guest I can't access any of the options to upgrade, but each time I signed off I got some upgrades from AOL. Then I had a bright idea to do system restore, lol, no connection again so around in circles, still didn't work with my screen name. It always gets to the AOL Home page then hangs for a while and cuts out or cuts out immediately. I have checked every option possible to restore the connection, but with Uninstalling the upgraded AOL9VR I have fewer options now. Fewer still with signing on as Guest! Now my screen name does appear in the sign on box, where it didn't before, first it was the second option, now it's the first option but still no go.

It just seems strange I should be having these problems when there's serious viruses going around, it's almost as if my screen name has been hijacked. I can't block pop-ups and am getting adware, what else will I get. I just got a Spyware popup telling me one had been blocked, it's one I found earlier and blocked called 2o7.net

Robin,

Neither Norton nor Symantec are high rated AV programs. AVG and Avast, both free, are rated much higher in effectiveness. NOD32 is also a top-ranked AV program, but it is not free. NOD32 and Avast both update their virus signatures every day, rather than once a week as Norton and Symantec do. I assume AVG also updates every day.

wallaby1,

I wish I could help you with your problem, but I've never dealt with AOL. I have a program called RollbackRX. If you have a computer problem you can rollback to a time when everything worked fine. This will also rollback any spreadsheets or doc files as well. However, then you can use the program to "roll forward" just those documents. Works neat! I have a spreadsheet for my eBay listings. One day it got scrambled -- I don't know what happened. But RollbackRX fixed the problem by going back a few hours when the spreadsheet was fine. I cannot tell you what this saved me -- but if I had had to reconstruct this spreadsheet it would have taken me days and days, and it probably still wouldn't have been totally correct. RollbackRX paid for itself in just that one time I needed it. After you get things back together properly, you might want to give this program some thought. Years ago I used GoBack, but it's since been bought by Norton and current reviews say it's not much good any more. You can get a free trial of RollbackRX.

Here is the link:

http://www.horizondatasys.com/169614.ihtml

Karen

Yes, AVG updates on my computers every day.

Thanks glendalkid, Rollbackwill be the same as what I have with Windows XP, that's System restore which you can reset to a previous time, also undo that. This is what I did, but as I had already deleted the programme I had to reinstall, with no success, so I undid it and had to do the same thing again!

OK, you will be maybe happy to know and I am thrillled that I have found the problem! I had already done all my spyware check, AOL does their's regularly, as well as when I start up and a full of once weekly automatically. I do have Norton which comes with the system, but I have Spybott S&D too and that is very good as well as free. I had already tried that to no avail, and decided to try the free 30 day trial of AVG. It took froever to load, then found 7 items in 11 locations but these were all connected to IE browser, medium risk, one was even a CoolWeb Search which sounds worrying but I think it was to do with the browser. Their recommended action was 'ignore once' which I didn't really understand.

Last resort before I rang AOL, tonight (now it's past 3am!) I checked for updates to Spybot. There was 12 updates from some time in December, but 7 of them were from this Wednesday 20th. They were all hijackers, trojans, and malware. (My problem started on Thursday!) About 9.5mb of download, then another 2+mb on top of that which was a long install but I did a scan after and it found 2 entries of RegistryFix. Deleted those, and signed on with my screen name, it worked! I could then set my pop-up blocker, but still haven't been able to complete the Home page, although I can now access more on it there is an AOL icon which has to be dropped into the Home location, I had already done that and there should be a box popping up so I can click 'yes' but that isn't happening. That should complete the installation.

I had upgraded before to AOL9VR so will try that tomorrow, it may work but other updates might take over too. AOL was updating some files every time I signed off.

So, if anyone is interested, I highly recommend Spybot! They only ask for donations if you wish, they continually research, the developer believes a lot of 0's and 1's should be free!

I have windows live care. they sent me a renewel notice, so after a few hours trying to find out how to cancel it, and sending them a message to cancel, it keeps finding these viruses it is cleaning off my computer. Never done a thing all year, and all of a sudden after i want to cancel. I think the virus company's are making the virus's and sending them out.

Robin,

The rating for AVG is so high that I was sure it updated every day.

wallaby1,

Glad to hear you found the problem and got it fixed. I too have Windows XP, but Rollback RX is not the same as Windows Restore. Spybot S&D is a good program, and I use it. However, to that add Ad-Aware, also free. Spybot and Ad-Aware find different types of spyware. So, that's why you need both. By all means try AVG, it is free and much higher rated than Norton. Norton came with my new computer. There are some parts of it I cannot delete because it is tied into Windows, but it's no longer operative as AV software on my computer.

I also use ZoneAlarm as a personal firewall, also free. It's kind of a nuisance at first because after you install it you have to give permission to ZoneAlarm for every program that wants to access the internet. If you don't play on-line games though, the list is much shorter. Ha, ha. But once that is done, it's a great program and is important protection against hackers.

Len,

You are too, too funny. LOL.

Karen

Postcard virus is a hoax. See http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl_postcard_virus.htm

The saga hasn't ended yet! When I signed off last night/this morning, I got a very large notice from AOL for an important update, which I had been expecting for some time but it hadn't happened until now. They had sent an email at least 2 months ago stating they were changing locations, and if the computer was switched off or the update interrupted I would lose my connection. Now I'm wondering if this was the reason I couldn't sign on as the location notice was needing to be done, but the spyware was stopping it.

My location before was 'Home' but now it is 'AOL' and they are using a dialling service to connect before signing in, called 'Dial nb'. This could be a way to stop hacking, but I don't know anything about Dial nb, and I still have the same Homepage which I can't do any security upgrades, and before I signed on there was a security notice telling me that Firewall wasn't recognised by AOL. It gave me a form to fill in, or sign in to if I was already a member, but told me 'Sorry, this is not available at the moment, please try later'!

I decided then to try downloading a newer version of AOL10, there is a Vista ready version but I don't have Vista so decided to go for the lesser one. It got so far, AOL tried to shut down but before I could click the restart button it shut down. I had a 'retry' icon and at the moment it's got to 50% (I have dial-up). I'm hoping this will work, and give me the upgrades I need at the same time, but I have a feeling it will tell me at the end it couldn't install.

Does anyone else have AOL or know anyone who's having trouble? It seems to me their location changing is causing problems! I wish I had done the Spybot update first, before I deleted everything else, lol, grumble, groan, as you can guess this is no fun.

I will have to look at Rollback RX glendale kid, I did purchase RegCure after my crash about 3 months ago, it gets rid of ActiveX.com sites and empty registry keys as well as other things which clog computers. The 'RegistryFix' I had thought wasn't a spyware, as there is one called FreeRegistryFix which is a scam site (I tracked that back to a web hosting telecommunications site in Russia). I may even have tried RegistryFix when I was looking around them to compare, oh back to searching later when I get my head around it all. I don't use gaming sites, and too many Firewalls can cause problems, it seems even one is a problem just now!

I think you could be right Len, lol, these companies will do anything to get your money!

Oh yes, my arrow froze when I first switched on too! I unplugged everything and let the charge drain, it worked....