VIRUS warning

[phesina]

To any of you whose e-mail address I might have, you probably got an e-mail from "me" today with nothing but links in it.

DO NOT CLICK ON THE LINK. JUST DELETE THE MESSAGE.

I seem to have gotten a virus which sent e-mails of this sort to every address in my address book. Laura sent me a PM alerting me about it and asking if I'd sent her such a mail because she suspected not. Sure enough, I hadn't.

Then I looked at my e-mail account, which had a number of bounced-back messages and some from other people who wondered if I'd sent that.

I had my virus checker, FProt, do a full computer scan, which found one and quarantined it.

Now I am figuring out how best to clean up the mess. If any of you have gotten one of these, delete it, and then scan your computer completely with your virus checker.

Sorry for any trouble I have inadvertently caused, and good luck,
Pat

[Taz_Zoee]

You don't have my email address, but this has happened with another PT member I email. It has done it twice from her and once from someone else not PT related. You can usually tell it's not real. In fact, I sent her a separate email asking her if she sent me anything.
Goodness, we have the worries of real life viruses and we also have to worry about cyber viruses.

[Karen]

I emailed everyone who address was in the email it sent me, dunno if that was everyone.

[Laura's Babies]

What got me was the other addresses the emails were sent to... Amazon and other businesses, one of them had more business addresses than people addresses.. that virus didn't know the differance...

You would be surprised how many emails I get from people that have only a link in them... I ALWAYS delete those. I had warned everybody long ago that I only open PERSONAL emails so make sure they put something in the subject line that lets me know it is PERSONAL and came from them. These emails had nothing in the subject line...

[phesina]

I think I'm going to dump my AOL account and switch to gmail..

AOL seems to add the address of any e-mail I receive to my address book... which is how all those business addresses have gotten in there. And I can't find out how to tell it not to add addresses without asking me first.

AOL has really gone downhill lately. The help info that comes with the site is pretty sparse now. And real-time online help there used to be pretty good but is non-existent now unless you want to pay for it. And I read in the New York Times last week that they are laying off a few THOUSAND

[Laura's Babies]

LOL! Good luck on dumping aol, it is not easy to do.. Research on the internet the tricks they use to keep your money coming in. You may have to close what ever account you are paying with to stop them from taking your money. I have had dealings with them before and was amazed at how they cheat people because I was extreemly pleased with their service as a ISP, just not their tactics. Just type in aol/problems/forums and start reading..

You are rid of that virus and everything running alright for you now?

[phesina]

I just do the free AOL on the web, so they don't have their hooks in me, but I've used that account as my primary one for a long time.

I just now realized I posted my previous message before I finished it! (I was wondering where it had gone), so here's what else I have to say:

I think AOL has really been going downhill recently. Their customer support and live online help are virtually nonexistent these days (unless you want to pay for it), and last week I read in the NY Times that they are about to lay off a few THOUSAND people. Great, so no reason to expect those deficiencies to be improved! And their latest project to improve their service involves revising their LOGO! ..writing the name as "Aol." (period included). Bah, humbug.

If any of you reading this has any comments or suggestions, positive or negative, regarding AOL and/or gmail, would you please let me know? Thanks.

As for the virus, it's removed from my computer now and no more nasty spammy e-mails are being sent from it posing as me. The computer is still running slowly, but that has been happening for a week or two or so now, before this current problem erupted. I've been hearing of or from other people who have that happening on theirs too, so I think that's something else.

[Laura's Babies]

My ISP has been running real slow for about that same length of time also. As I have said before, I think there was a virus unleashed on the internet about then but for some reason, nobody is talking about it and that has me puzzeled. I can hardly watch any You Tube video's because it takes them so long to load. I can download them before they will play completely... if it is one I REALLY want to watch, I just download it to watch it now.