posted on October 2, 2001 09:01:22 PM
Received this email from a friend today. Is what I'm reading really true, will it work & is it a good idea?
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As you may know, when/if a worm virus gets into your computer it heads
straight for your email address book and sends itself to everyone in
there,
thus infecting all your friends and associates.
This trick won't keep the virus from getting into your computer, but it
will stop it from using your address book to spread further, and it will
alert you to the fact that the worm has gotten into your system.
Here's what you do: first, open your address book and click on "new
contact" just as you would do if you were adding a new friend to your
list of email
addresses. In the window where you would type your friend's first
name, type in !000 (that's an exclamation mark followed by 3 zeros).
In the window below where it prompts you to enter the new email address,
type in WormAlert.
Then complete everything by clicking add, enter, ok, etc.
Now, here's what you've done and why it works: the "name" !000 will be
placed at the top of your address book as entry #1. This will be
where the worm will start in an effort to send itself to all your
friends. But when it tries to send itself to !000, it will be
undeliverable because of the phony email address you entered
(WormAlert). If the first attempt fails (which it will because of the
phony address), the worm goes no further and your friends will not be
infected.
Here's the second great advantage of this method:
if an email cannot be delivered, you will be notified of this in your
InBox almost immediately.
Hence, if you ever get an email telling you that an email addressed to
WormAlert could not be delivered, you know right away that you have the
worm virus in your system. You can then take steps to
get rid of it!
posted on October 2, 2001 09:12:44 PM
I RECIEVED THE SAME ADVICE TODAY. I USE HOTMAIL AND YOU HAVE TO DO IT A LITTLE DIFFERENT ON MY EMAIL SITE. FOR QUICK NAME -AAA, FOR FIRST NAME - !000, FOR LAST NAME - !0000 AND FOR EMAIL ADDRESS - [email protected] THIS WILL PUT THIS ALERT AT THE TOP OF THE MAILING LIST. I TRIED IT TONIGHT, FORWARDED SOME MAIL ALONG WITH OTHER LEGITIMATE EMAILS AND IT DID COME RIGHT BACK TO ME WITHIN A MINUTE OR TWO! I WOULD IMAGINE THIS MIGHT WORK! I'M GOING TO GIVE IT A TRY, WHAT CAN IT HURT BUT A FEW MINUTES OF YOUR TIME AND IT MAY SAVE YOUR MAILING LIST FROM A LOT OF TROUBLE!
posted on October 2, 2001 09:29:21 PM
Most of these worms use the address book in Microsoft Outlook and/or Outlook Express. It'd have to be a pretty nifty worm to get into your computer, log you onto Hotmail, and send e-mails out. I don't know about AOL, seems that they always have a whole host of their own problems...
posted on October 2, 2001 09:53:38 PM
It might work with some worms, but it won't work with Nimda. Nimda gets addresses from email that you have in folders not from the address book.
posted on October 3, 2001 01:17:02 AM
Yes, this will prevent sending messages to all the people on your address book. But - you're missing the point. If you have a virus inside your computer - you have a big problem. The concept is - keep the virus from getting into your computer - don't worry about whether it can get out again.
posted on October 3, 2001 04:21:27 AM
petertdavis is right - these almost always target Outlook to the point I have wondered if it is people disgusted with Microsoft.
Solution - I don't use it and have never had a problem. I use Netscape and never open a file I am not expecting.
posted on October 3, 2001 06:41:55 AM
It's not an elegant solution but it works. Our company used this approach when we got the Melissa virus. For quite some time, the first 50 entries in our global address book were invalid names.
Others are correct here, the best answer is to bite the bullet, spend the 50 bucks or whatever, and get some good antivirus software. A crashed hard disk or crashed computer really puts a kink in your eBay business!
posted on October 3, 2001 06:48:02 AM
I don't see why it would work. If I wrote a worm that sent itself to all your best friends, I wouldn't wait around to see if mail gets returned or not.
posted on October 3, 2001 08:46:06 AM
from Fred Langa (whose Langalist - www.langalist.com - is the best newsletter on the internet):
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I wasn't going to cover this widely-circulated "tip" because it's so easy to check for yourself: Just try it: Add the fake name, but enter no corresponding email address. Many email clients will allow you to do this, and indeed will complain when you--- or a virus or worm--- try to send email to that bogus name.
The other reason I avoided presenting this tip is because it only works if your online defenses have already failed: Yes, it may help prevent a virus from spreading from your machine, but by the time this trick works, your PC is already infected. It's far, far better to prevent such infections in the first place. Then, not only will your system not infect others, but *you* won't be infected either.
So add a fake "!0000" (or "AAAAAA" or whatever) name to your address book if you wish, but please realize that this does absolutely nothing to prevent you from being infected in the first place, and so is of limited utility, at best.
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posted on October 3, 2001 08:55:32 AMthese almost always target Outlook to the point I have wondered if it is people disgusted with Microsoft.
Maybe, but I think it has more to do with the fact that so many people use Microsoft products. At the point some other software company gains a large enough share of the market, I'll bet you'll see their software targeted, too.
After all, how much fun would it be for the virus writers if their virii didn't infect anybody, because people weren't using the software they were written for?
