Virus, or not?

I am not sure if I do have a virus.

On Saturday I had an e-mail from a friend with a subject "Klez.E worm immunity ". This is nothing unusual as when we learn anything about any viruses, we all mass mail each other with the info.

After opening it, I discovered it wasn't from my friend - it came from his e-mail address, but he didn't send it - It read quite formally that if I download & run this program, then it will fool the real virus into thinking I was already infected.

But there was no program to download, and then I realised that the e-mail was sent solely to me, which is really odd, so I called my friend, and he confirmed that he hadn't sent any e-mails, also another friend had recieved one from him with absolutley no content.

I immediately scanned my pc with House Call (Trend), and my other friends dcanned theirs with Sophos & Symantec.

No-one had any results at all, the program that I used to scan my pc is an online scanner, which updates itself everytime you scan.

Then, I recieved an e-mail from him today telling me that I had sent him an e-mail, with no content. I haven't sent any e-mails to anyone with no content.

Do I have a virus, I am about to scan my pc right now with Symantec, please can someone advise me.

Cheers.
Dig.

 

By all means scan with Symantec...then give housecall a try as well.

Daizy

 

Just finished Symantec scan - 0 Files infected.

Daizy - The first thing I did was scan my computer with Housecall (as stated above). That too returned a negative result.

Does this sound like a virus to anyone? or is there something else that could be going on.

I am running ZoneAlarm (version 2.6.362), could this be a hcaking problem?

I doubt if it is, because it's happening to 3 people at the same time.

Help please

 

Hi Digitalis
I highly doubt it. Sounds to me like you're quite well protected. The thing with Klez is, it's not propogating from your address book, but someone else's.
When Klez first came out.....I sent everyone in my address book the link to the fixtool ......asked them to run it...and pass on the link to everyone in their address book as well. May be worth the effort?

Daizy

 

Run that tool, didn't find anything.

Is it a virus?

 

Yes and no. The Klez.E "protection tool" is actually Klez.H! The propagation process is not, however, always effective and sometimes the virus-carrying attachment gets "lost ". It would sound as though this is what has happened in your case.

It's worth noting that somebody who has both you and your friend in his or her address book does have an infected machine. You might, therefore, wish to send an email to likely culprits.

More information is here.

BTW - you really should have some form of local AV protection to enable you to scan files/attachments prior to opening. F-Prot for DOS and AVG are both effective and free.

 

If it looked like the below then at one time it was carrying the Klez virus.

 

That's exactly how it went.

Does this mean that I have got the virus? or has it somehow not made it to me?

when the e-mail was opened (Hotmail/IE) I did not download anything, and there was no link to the program it spoke of. There was however, a link to a site, that I didn't click - is this why I am not infected? (Symantec & Housecall seem to think not!)

Dig.

 

The infected piece would have been part of that email as an attachment. Something (probably your AV program) removed it and just gave you the text portion which is harmless.

 

I'm not running any AV.

The Scans I did were online scans.
There was a link in the e-mail, but I did not click anything.

PLease tell me I've got away with it, this time.

Cheers.
Dig.

 

Again, Digitalis, if you've ran the online scanners, and they've turned nothing up...you're home free.

You should really look into running an AV though? Surely even a free one, such as AVG ?

Daizy

 

Sorted

I'm downloading AVG right now, cheers for all the help.

Dig.

 

Good thinking Digitalis. I've recently switched from Norton's on one of myc omputers, to AVG, and am very pleased with it.

Daizy