Computer virus (?) Help?

Today at 4:09 pm I receive 44 of these emails being returned (?) to me…which of course I never sent. Question is…is this my problem, or someone elses?
In checking my sent mail folder…they were never sent. What bothers me…some is the .rr.rochester.net ISP provider is listed on each one of them….I’ve deleted the link that was attached…and which I didn’t open. Any thought from you gurus out there?

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The following message to <[email protected]> was undeliverable.
The reason for the problem:
5.1.0 – Unknown address error 550-‘5.1.1 unknown or illegal alias: ([email protected]’

Final-Recipient: rfc822;[email protected]
Action: failed
Status: 5.0.0 (permanent failure)
Diagnostic-Code: smtp; 5.1.0 – Unknown address error 550-‘5.1.1 unknown or illegal alias: [email protected]’ (delivery attempts: 0)
Reporting-MTA: dns; clmboh-mx-01.mgw.rr.com

Subject:
Dresden 1945
From:
ME [email protected]
Date:
Sun, 15 May 2005 18:54:16 UTC
To:
[email protected]

Lese selbst:
(EDIT I’ve deleted this url)

block that address and move on?

It has an attachement probably which they want you to open to see what the email you supposedly sent was. Once you open that attachment you have a spy bug! Delete address and emails and add to spam email box.

I’m no guru by any stretch of anyone’s imagination but were any of the “intended recipients” (ie: rfc822) from your contact list or address book? If you did not open anything you should be o.k. I would, however, inform the Rochester ISP

Debbie

I can block who it was from…because I (my email address) was listed as the sender.
Good point Miss D. Fly, I did check each email, thinking I would know some one…but each one was returned as undeliverable…because there wasn’t such a person. The ones (if there were any) that did go through would be interesting to know…

It seems like a scam to get inocent…unsuspecting people (like me) to open the url at the bottom of the page for spy ware…or some other nasty activity…but if that’s the case, why so many?

Wouldn’t this be more of a attack on the rr.rochester’s ISP?

My best guess is that you have been “spoofed”. Spoofing is when another person’s computer is infected with a mass-mailing worm and your address is on their computer. The worm then randomly adds your e-mail address to the “From” line of every message it sends making it look like you have sent e-mails when you have not. It wouldn’t hurt to run a virus scan, though.

Debbie

Thanks again DF…Now that you mention it…this has happened to me in the past. I always panic when I see 40 or so emails that say I sent them!

I never understood what the motivation was for creating viruses or spyware. If you had the greatest right arm in the world, would you pitch for the Yankees or would you stand on the Wakota Bridge and throw rocks at the barges? I don’t get it. If these guys are that smart why aren’t they working for Microsoft or Oracle or Apple or somebody and making big bucks. I don’t get it.

Rootski

P.S. Hey Briank when ar ewe going to get out?

Why do they do it? Money. Lots of it. There was a spammer arrested in Florida a few months back that was making $750,000 a MONTH. For many that SPAM “professionally” its a huge money-maker… they couldn’t make anything close to that working a 9 – 5.

Quote:

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I never understood what the motivation was for creating viruses or spyware. If you had the greatest right arm in the world, would you pitch for the Yankees or would you stand on the Wakota Bridge and throw rocks at the barges? I don’t get it. If these guys are that smart why aren’t they working for Microsoft or Oracle or Apple or somebody and making big bucks. I don’t get it.

Rootski

P.S. Hey Briank when ar ewe going to get out?

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I don’t know which is worse, the fact that there are eveil people out there trying to hack into my computer, or the fact that they make so much more money than teachers or policemen or firefighters. It’s a strange world we live in!

Rootski

Quote:

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I never understood what the motivation was for creating viruses or spyware.

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Many of these “Techno Ted Kaczynski’s” do it simply because they can.

well for 750,000 dollars a month, kind tempting for someone that knows how to do it and is good at it..

One thing you could do is to look at the e-mail headers of those mails. Therein you could see the source of the originating e-mail server.

A couple to things could be afoot here.

Say I get your e-mail addy. I spoof your e-mail address and mail out an e-mail to some nonexistent e-mail address with an infected attachment. The e-mail looks like it came from you. Since the intended nonexistent e-mail address doesn’t exist, it gets returned ( to you). You say to yourself…’Hey, I don’t remember sending this to anyone’, you open the attachment…ZAAAP..you’re infected.
Or in this case, you clicked on the attached link…you get the idea…

You could have an e-mail Worm. It would use it’s own SMTP mailing engine that would send mails from your machine behind your back , so to speak.
It goes without saying that running a good virus program , with updated virus definitions, is a must these days. A good software firewall program can help stop this sort of thing too. The firewall program will watch which programs have access to the Web and allow only your e-mail client program to e-mail from your machine and only on certain ports.

I wouldn’t be a bad idea to swing over to Trend Micro’s web site and do an online scan of your system…it’s free. It called Housecall.