I recently received an email, translated as follows:
Do you have MSN? If a person named whistler_1987athotmail… tries to contact you, say “NO!” He is spreading a virus named Albanish atack. Send this message to all of your contacts, because if one of them catches the virus, you will too! So, send this quickly!
This sounds like a hoax to me, for a number of reasons.
Firstly, I’m not sure if MSN can be used to spread viruses.
Secondly, how could it be that if one person in my contacts received the virus, that I’d automatically get it too?
You should not post valid email addresses in a forums. Instead, write it in a way that breaks it … whistler_1987(at)hotmail(dot)com
Yes, this could be a hoax email but it could also be real.
Yes, any email program can be used to spread viruses. In fact, this is the way most of them spread … by email.
Well, I would not say it would necessarily be automatic but chances are if you open an infected email from a friend (which most people do) and it contains a not yet detected virus, your computer will be infected.
Learn this from CharleyO, never post a live e-mail address on a website in what form whatever, even sending main e-mail addresses as e-cards can lead to yours or the senders’ address spammed. There are e-mail address harvesting bots on the net, because a valid e-mail address means real big cash. They are sold by the millions on dvd’s. Never give your private address out, only for registring. Use a second address for other means.
Thanks for the advice, I didn’t come to think of that at all, perhaps because the address in question was allegedly a virus-spreader… not very good logic… :-X
But I changed it anyway.
P.S. Does anyone know if a virus called albanian atack actually exists?
My first port of call would be Virus Myths but for the most part I ignore virus warnings and certainly don’t pass them on.
Any virus warning/hoax is designed to generate massive email traffic. You send it to all in your address book, they send it to all in their address book and you can already see masses of email traffic.
