Email Virus warning

[snodog]

The message below was received by me at my aol account.
I know the "mike" the message is allegedly from.
I'm concerned about the zip attachement - surely if aol thought my email account was being used to generate spam they would advise me directly rather than through someone else?
I've checked my sent mail folder and it doesn't have anything in there other than stuff I have sent.

The xxx have been put in by me - for the purposes of this post.


Whadda ya think?



Subj: Returned mail: see transcript for details
Date: 26/7/2004 3:15:49 pm GMT Daylight time
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
File:: [email protected]
Sent from the Internet (Details)




Dear user of aol.com,

We have detected that your e-mail account has been used to send a huge amount of spam during the recent week.
Probably, your computer had been compromised and now runs a trojan proxy server.

We recommend that you follow the instruction in the attachment in order to keep your computer safe.

Best wishes,
The aol.com team.

 

[Andy80F]

Run your own Virus checker. Though not prone to virus (Mac user) I still have a healthy distrust of anything out of the ordinary and would be suspicious of any file not expected. Contact AOL to check your account and see if you have been sending (or your address is being hijacked to send) large amounts of mail and then let them look into it. Then ask your mate to check his machine which may well have been used without his knowledge to send you the email. It looks like he is the one with the virus.

 

[Mike Werner]

Don't worry (be happy). Some virus writers got their hands onsome SPAM list and are spoofing those addresses as if they sent the virus, ie, they're using your name/email address to send viruses.

I see about 100 per day sent from my domain.

AOL is one of the few ISP who have not understood this, and I get frequent emails from them telling me that I've got a virus.

There's nothing you can do

 

[snodog]

Andy
thanks - I'm remotely accessing my AOL at work so I'll check my own machine when I get home.
I've already sent a email to my mate to get hime to check if he really sent me the message or whether his pc did it on its own.

I'llget in touch with AOL later.

thanks again
Pete

 

[Steve]

It's bound to be a virus. If it was genuine, and AOL really wanted you to follow their instructions, they wouldn't put them in an attachment.