Virus Attachments
Eudora Tip #109/28-Nov-2001

My email address is on a couple of websites and when people surf around my address often ends up stored on their computer in the web browser’s cache. My address is also in many people’s email address books. That’s why for the last 3 or 4 days I’ve been receiving messages which seem to be empty and whose subject line reads “Re:”. I’ve now received some 40 of these and more are arriving every few hours.

This is the virus called: W32.Badtrans.B@mm

<http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.badtrans.b@mm.html>

Now, as a Mac user these viruses don’t and can’t infect my computer, but there are still some things I need to know.

First, the virus affects those who run the Windows operating system and who use Microsoft Outlook (or Outlook Express — it’s a little unclear). It does two things: it attempts to find password and other similar information and email it to a number of addresses, and it sends an attachment to email addresses it finds on the computer. That’s where I (and maybe you) come in: if my email address is on the infected computer I will also receive the virus attachment.

The email message itself seems to be totally empty. There’s no indication of an attachment. Normal messages have an icon or a line of writing at the bottom with the name and location of the attachment.

However, if you click the Blah Blah Blah button (See Tips 50 and 71) you’ll find it’s an HTML message with no content, but at the bottom of the message is a line about an attachment. Here’s one I received:

Related: :Gabrielle:README.MP3.scr\%202:00013580:2B944F0F:00000000:00000000

[Gabrielle's the name of my hard drive] The key element here is the part which reads “README.MP3.scr”. They aren’t all called that, but the .scr on the end is a giveaway.

Normally attachments go to my Attachments Folder. To find yours go to the Eudora Special Menu and look under Settings – Attachments.

These ones though don’t go there. Instead they go to the Eudora Parts Folder [Use Sherlock to find it — MacTip #6 (see below for link) has information and a video about using Sherlock]

You should clean out that folder regularly — it’s where certain things go such as graphics embedded in email messages, and it’s definitely not the case that everything in there is a virus.

And as for the virus — like so many other viruses it comes from those using Windows, it can’t infect your Mac, it might come from someone you know or someone you don’t, you should trash the message and the attachment. You might also consider encouraging your friends and acquaintance to switch to using Macs, or at the very least to switch to using Eudora under Windows.

If they won’t do either of those things then encourage them to find out how to make their email software more secure by updating it and by entering the correct settings, and tell them to get reliable anti-virus software and check *daily* for updated definitions.

People often buy Windows computers because they are “cheaper”. Now I’m paying the price for their “cheap” computer as I deal with their viruses and answer questions for my Mac using clients who are worried about these and other viruses. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose …