Is there a big global virus alert or is this not true?
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I just received an email, that said – my translation:
An email with pictures of Bin Laden has been sent out and is going around the world, – mainly in the USA and in Israel. It has text in English and it says “Bin Laden has been captured” or “Osama hanged”.
Also there is a version, that says “Invitation”. Don’t open it regardless of who sent it!
It is a virus, that burns of the c-part of your hard disk away. It removes all vital files and it is not possible to repair the pc. It is an Olympic torch virus.
This is the latest virus alert announced by CNN. Microsoft says, it is thé most serious and most destructive virus ever. Your pc will crash immediately after you open the email.
End of translation.
I can not find any information on CNNs homepage, that confirms this. No luck on Microsoft’s homepage either.
Did any of you hear about this? Or did I look in the wrong places? Would any of you know where to check this virus alert? Or is it a fraud?
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Doing a Google Search has turned up a few results that suggest it’s another hoax/fraud.
The BBC link first reported in June 2005 so it’s certainly not new.
I would just delete the email and not worry about it. :)
By the way, this should really have been put in off-topic rather than support as it’s not a wordpress.com related question.
Collin
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1) this belongs in off-topic, not support.
2) you can always find out about stuff like this by searching symantec’s security responses: http://www.symantec.com/home_homeoffice/security_response/index.jsp
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Something’s going on. 7.2 million bounces at my firewalls this week. That’s up a wee bit.
There was some attack against the main DNS servers run by ICANN a few days ago. 3 of the 13 servers were taken offline as a precaution. Link
Folks, update your virus protection. My own firewalls and servers update every two hours. You should be updating every day.
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Out of curiousity drmike, what extra protections do you run on your servers to guard against spam. All my programs are guarded by bad behaviour and some things by .htaccess. If you don’t want to discuss it here, that is fine with me. If you want, drop me a line at gtalk or email as I would love to discuss this with a WPMU expert ;)
Trent
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Insert my standard, this does not relate to wp.com and shouldn’t be taken for meaning anything about what occurs here.
For my own WPMu install, I just run Akismet and have a number of manual denies in the htaccess file. My host uses a number of tools but I’ve noted that she doesn’t discuss them publicly so I’m not sure what she runs.
On my own boxes, I have a custom Intel software firewall that came with the routers with custom anti-DoS virus protection built in. It came with the hardware so if I gave you the name, it would be pretty meaningless. The network is also monitored by the datacenter as one of my three connections goes into their local network. The folks who do my client services also monitor and they can drop IPs into the routers for blockage as well. We also have a list of IPs where we do not accept any traffic from (ie Midland, Texas) or only accept limited mail traffic from. (ie we don’t accept email from Korea any more)
For those with their own Linux boxes, I usually recommend using the APF firewall with as many plugins (BFD, anti-DOS, SIM, etc.) as you feel comfortable with. It starts slowing down the box if you get too heavly protected.
Hope this helps,
-drmike -
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