10th October 2002

From a knowledgeable Netfriend:

The Bugbear virus doing the rounds this past week or so carries its own mailing protocol. It picks a mail address from the infected computer’s address list, and part of a message from them, and then sends itself to everyone in the mailing list. The ‘from’ in the address list is not necessarily the person who sent the virus – they are just ‘lucky’ enough to be in someone else’s address book.

Some of you may have received an email from a VBMN list member (or two!) with part of an old message. This is the result of virus activity. And it is not necessarily the “sender’s” computer which was infected.

In short, keep your virus definitions up-to-date. And if you don’t have an Anti-Virus program, it’s well worth the $80 or so. (By the way, Bugbear disables anti-virus and firewall programs at the first step!)

An even better precaution is not to use Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express as a mail reader. Try Eudora, Netscape, Opera, or The Bat. None of these programs automatically execute attachments.