# Nasty virus E-mail from Marty Cozad !!!!



## W3NZL (Jan 2, 2008)

I, and several others just got a virus laden email, the email is OK, but the link in it is some kind of poison... 
I suspect its addressed to train folks, I recognize a few of the recipients emails... It was sent from 
Marty's email address, the thing is titled "Re Y".... No idea what it is, AVG won't let me go near it...
I'm sure some of U computer gurus know whats going on here... BUT MAINLY if U get something from 
MARTY titled "Re Y", don't go near it...
Paul R...


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## TonyWalsham (Jan 2, 2008)

I got the E Mail with no message but with a link I did not open. 

I cannot imagine Marty would write to me without saying something so I immediately deleted the E mail.


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

Ditto, and also put Marty's address in my junk mail list... won't happen again. 

Greg


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## aceinspp (Jan 2, 2008)

Yep I got it also. I let Mary know about it. Later RJD


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## NTCGRR (Jan 2, 2008)

I'm doing a virus scan, cleared e-mailes etc. 
I did not open anything that does not look right. I was at the desk then the computer started , I found hundreds of mail failures in my spam and regular box. 
sorry. 
No idea , some one is being nasty to me.


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## Dwight Ennis (Jan 2, 2008)

Mine had the subject line "Re: [SPAM]" 

Marty, I suspect you picked it up from a web site you visited. What anti-virus software are you running?


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## NTCGRR (Jan 2, 2008)

Nortan 
just MLS, Aristo, LSC


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## SteveC (Jan 2, 2008)

Another possibility, did you open any unexpected eMails?


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## cabforward (Feb 18, 2008)

There is another one from Marty titled Hawaii that has a weird link Atached


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## Dwight Ennis (Jan 2, 2008)

Did you run a full scan? Was anything found? Does anyone else use that computer? 

I stopped using Norton at home and Symantec (same thing) at work a few years back because it was becoming increasingly ineffective - not to mention bloated and slow. I switched to AVG - first the free anti-virus and then the full Internet Security Suite. Same price as Norton and far more effective imho, plus very fast and a small footprint in the system. When I opened your email and clicked on the link, AVG blocked my access and protected me from my own momentary stupidity. You might consider switching. If you do, make sure you fully uninstall Norton first (including their sometimes separate LiveUpdate). You don't want to anti-virus packages fighting for control of your system.


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## W3NZL (Jan 2, 2008)

I'll second Dwight's recommendation for AVG, I too went thru the nightmares of Macaffee & Noton's AV programs for a several years... 
Then a computer guru said I should try Grisoft, now AVG, been with them for years now, all 3 computers with the full packages 
for quite a few years now, and NO problems whatsoever...
Paul R...


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## NTCGRR (Jan 2, 2008)

this is the first time for this one year old computer. I must have opened an e-mail. I have been really careful all these years.


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## Burl (Jan 2, 2008)

Had a similar problem myself a couple years ago... virus scan turned up nothing... turned out someone hacked my hotmail account through the website. Marty, make sure you change your password!


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## Dwight Ennis (Jan 2, 2008)

Got another from you this morning at 4:04 AM my time Marty, so you're still infected. My mother-in-law got something just like this (probably the same thing). Seems it sends an email with a contaminated link out several times a day to a group of randomly selected people in your address book. She hasn't gotten rid of it either. I finally blocked her email address.


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## Semper Vaporo (Jan 2, 2008)

Posted By Dwight Ennis on 23 Jul 2011 07:06 AM 
Got another from you this morning at 4:04 AM my time Marty, so you're still infected. My mother-in-law got something just like this (probably the same thing). Seems it sends an email with a contaminated link out several times a day to a group of randomly selected people in your address book. She hasn't gotten rid of it either. I finally blocked her email address. 

Hmmmm... now that sounds like a "likely excuse" to block one's Mother-In-Law's e-mail address!









Marty; Do change your e-mail account password. Also, check to see if you have a link into it from any of the social networking sites, (like Facebook, etc.) to see if maybe it is what is accessing your e-mail account and sending the bogus stuff.

Everybody; to help detect whether I have been infected by this type of hack, I created e-mail accounts in Yahoo and G-mail (both free accounts) and put those addresses in the "Contact List" of my main account (and each other). Then if one of the accounts gets hacked, the hack will probably send an e-mail to one of the other accounts so I have a chance to know it has happened, maybe before anyone else has and I can send a warning e-mail to everyone in the contacts list as a courtesy to watch out for the bogus one. As a bonus, I can use those accounts as something to enter when some site requires an e-mail address but I don't want to share my "real" account (that I use for communication that I want to occur) and keeps that account free of insipid junk mail.


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## aceinspp (Jan 2, 2008)

I have also installed the AVG and it blocked it right away. Possibly here is how it could have happended also if Marty had Facebook acct. Later RJD 

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A California man who trolled women's Facebook pages searching for clues that allowed him to take over their email accounts was sentenced Friday to more than four years in state prison after a judge rejected a plea for a lighter sentence and likened the man to a peeping Tom.


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## Terry Jackson (Jan 4, 2008)

I got one of those emails the other day also.


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## NTCGRR (Jan 2, 2008)

We think we know where it came from. My daughter-inlaw sent me a E-card. So I opened it. did not make any since. I e-mailed her back and she said she knew nothing of it. 
Thats about the time the computer kicked on while I was doing book work at my other desk.


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## Randy Stone (Jan 2, 2008)

BINGO!


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## Mike Reilley (Jan 2, 2008)

That's a clever virus propagation technique because the receiving person KNOWS the sending person...so they'd open the email. 

And Marty....let us know when you got that virus out of your machine. I've got your emails blocked now, and I assume many others do.


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

I get a number of these... if you look carefully, you can determine they are bogus. 

Most legitimate ones give you a direct link and a link to the ecard web site... 

If they are bogus, then the direct link is to a web site that does not look legitimate, instead of a known one like jacquie lawson, etc. 

Also the generic link to the main web site is missing. 

If in doubt, look at the link (hover your mouse over it) and google the domain name... 

only takes a few seconds to do, less time than it took to read this. 

Greg


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## Dwight Ennis (Jan 2, 2008)

I never open any e-cards regardless of who sends them. Been a policy of mine for years.


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## TonyWalsham (Jan 2, 2008)

Me neither. 
The friendly folk (some from MLS) who still send them to me must think I am a rude snob. Not really. Just careful.


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## NTCGRR (Jan 2, 2008)

My wife got the same card, we talked just now. I told her before it was a virus, but when I said e-card, she saw it to but did not open it. 
I think its all clear. I had 27 what ever things and it says its clear. 
I will talk to her about Dwights stuff. She does all the computer stuff. 

You would think tallented people would make more money using it for good. 
Had a good club meeting today at Richards home. good food, trains ran well. 
but it got hot.


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## Randy Stone (Jan 2, 2008)

Truth beknown, the companies selling the anti virus programs probably create most of the viruses.


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## Semper Vaporo (Jan 2, 2008)

Posted By Greg Elmassian on 23 Jul 2011 04:04 PM 
I get a number of these... if you look carefully, you can determine they are bogus. 

Most legitimate ones give you a direct link and a link to the ecard web site... 

If they are bogus, then the direct link is to a web site that does not look legitimate, instead of a known one like jacquie lawson, etc. 

Also the generic link to the main web site is missing. 

If in doubt, look at the link (hover your mouse over it) and google the domain name... 

only takes a few seconds to do, less time than it took to read this. 

Greg 

The problem there, Greg, is that I have no idea who "jacquie lawson" is, so there is absolutely no recognition factor for me to go by. 

It is often suggested, as you have, to look at the actual URL the link is pointing to by hovering the mouse over the link and viewing the status box at the bottom of the browser's window, but I have read (but do not know for sure) that even that can be spoofed. One must also recognize that there are several ways to hide or otherwise obscure the real domain name in the text shown, such as to fool the average user into assuming it is a URL of a valid site.

One time when I got one of those types of e-mails, it linked to what it indicated was "HallMark", which I recognized and assumed would be safe, but whatever it was that I was directed to opened several dozen copies of IE showing all kinds of adverts and things I did not take the time to even look at (so I have no idea what they were) before I could get the network cable out the socket and then pull both the AC power and the battery to get my PC turned off. 

Rebooting just restarted IE automatically and re-opened the same pages already in the cache... I had to reboot in Safe Mode and manually delete the content of the cache (this was before I had any programs [like CCleaner] to do this for me. I didn't even know where the cache was and spent a long time studying HELP web sites (using a different computer) trying to learn how to clean it up). I then had to clean up the Start Menu and several entries in the Registry where programs can be named to automatically run on start up.

When people send me links to "e-cards" now, I immediately delete the e-mail and contact the sender telling them that:

"I appreciate the sentiment, but I never open such links, so if you have found something that says how you feel, please just copy the words into your e-mail and let me read it there... Thanks". 

About half the time I get a response that they knew nothing of sending me an e-card.

Other people that I help with their PCs when they have problems have noted that after they have accessed an E-card website they then get lots more unwanted advertising, garbage and other e-mails generally called "SPAM", because in responding to the solicitation just indicates to the site that it now has a valid e-mail address to which to send the junk.


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## aceinspp (Jan 2, 2008)

Yep I'm with the rest of you folks as I have him blocked out. Later RJD


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## Rod Fearnley (Jan 2, 2008)

One of my buddies works for the Ministry for Defence over here, and he tells me one of the biggest problems is, the forwarding of Round Robin e-mails. Some where in the script is a program that send all of the addressee's back to the originator. Who then seels the addresses to scammers and such like. Inever, ever forward such mails. 
Like Mike, Marty I have you blocked at this point in time too.


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## NTCGRR (Jan 2, 2008)

Those who do know me, knows I hardly ever forward stuff. I hardly ever e-mail unless its answering a question for someone. 
By blocking me out, does that block MLS Private e-mails??


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## Dwight Ennis (Jan 2, 2008)

By blocking me out, does that block MLS Private e-mails?? It does not block PM's, no. I didn't block your emails, and I got nothing from you this morning btw. I'll let you know if I do.


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## noelw (Jan 2, 2008)

We don't block any one out ..That's what our virus program is for.. Not even old Marty, then can't give him a bad time and we don't save any Ice cream for him anymore. It would melt anyway.. laf...SO WE EAT IT.


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## jake3404 (Dec 3, 2010)

Posted By rlvette on 23 Jul 2011 05:51 PM 
Truth beknown, the companies selling the anti virus programs probably create most of the viruses. 

You are probably more right then we all would like to know.

To jump on the bandwagon, I wont use Norton or McAfee, those two are the biggest virus protection programs. I was told that many hackers will write programs specifically to attack those ones because a majority of computer users will have one or the other. I use Kasperski and like it, but I've also heard good things about AVG.


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