Possible computer worm

Lawrence · February 01, 2012, 03:24:31 PM

If you get an email from my red.zebra@hotmail account don't open it, it is a worm that will email all your contacts automatically with info on a money making scam. My brother sent it to me and it escaped norton and avg somehow

Apologies for any problems

Lawrence

scotsoft · February 01, 2012, 05:38:23 PM

I only have a hotmail account because I need one to access certain microsoft sites and one way round this worm problem hotmail is having is not to have any addresses in your hotmail account.

I know it is a pain to have to copy an email address into hotmail to send an email but if there are no email addresses it stops the worm dead

longbridge · February 01, 2012, 08:16:57 PM

Thanks Lawrence.

Lawrence · February 01, 2012, 08:29:45 PM

I have now deleted all contacts from my account and changed the password twice, if it keeps happening I don't know what to do. Annoys me so much that this happens, if I was really to say what I felt I would have to ban myself

scotsoft · February 01, 2012, 08:37:40 PM

I was sent an email by the people at hotmail giving me instructions what to do to get rid of the worm.

I don't have that email any longer and I can't remember what I did

cheers John.

Lawrence · February 01, 2012, 08:59:26 PM

Scans picked up win32trojan.agent so that has now gone from my pc, so fingers crossed.

Chinahand · February 02, 2012, 03:58:37 AM

I'm surprised it got past Norton. Which one are you using (Internet Security or 360) and are the virus definitions up to date ?

Lawrence · February 02, 2012, 08:36:37 AM

My brother uses Norton Trevor, the email came from him

and he is all up to date as it is the pc for his business so he was straight on to his IT man

Chinahand · February 02, 2012, 08:55:38 AM

Oooooh. That's worrying

Just found this in today's Daily Mail http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2094982/Threat-new-virus-infected-emails-PC-DONT-open-attachments.html

It seems there is a new type of computer virus on the loose

scotsoft · February 02, 2012, 09:47:02 AM

That certainly is worrying

zwilnik · February 02, 2012, 11:50:18 AM

Make sure that your email client is set so that it doesn't open display remote images in HTML messages for starters. That will at least remove the ability for a remote server to gain information when the message is initially loaded. Not sure if it'll deal with this specific worm as that could just be a problem with holes in the Windows mail client, but it certainly reduces the ability of spammers to get your information and closes one avenue of attack.