Hmmm … !! Well, Another Hmmm … !!

Hmmm …

Well …

That’s something I wouldn’t have expected …

Bless ’im, me Uncle Brian forwarded me an email, yesterday. One I’m personally thinking is a bit of a fuss over nothing. I do know I’ve one or two others like it, over the years: usually the fact the the forwarded text show’s no originating email address is — I’m told — the big give away.

But here’s the text of what Uncle Brian sent me …

HUGE VIRUS COMING ! PLEASE READ FORWARD !

Hi All,

I checked with Norton Anti-Virus, and they are gearing up for this virus! I checked Snopes, and it is for real. Get this E-mail message sent around to your contacts ASAP.

PLEASE FORWARD THIS WARNING AMONG FRIENDS, FAMILY AND CONTACTS! You should be alert during the next few days. Do not open any message with an attachment entitled ‘POSTCARD FROM HALLMARK’, regardless of who sent it to you. It is a virus which opens A POSTCARD IMAGE, which 'burns' the whole hard disc C of your computer.

This virus will be received from someone who has your e-mail address in his/her contact list. This is the reason why you need to send this e-mail to all your contacts. It is better to receive this message 25 times than to receive the virus and open it.

If you receive a mail called ‘POSTCARD’, even though sent to you by a friend, do not open it! Shut down your computer

immediately… This is the worst virus announced by CNN. It has been classified by Microsoft as the most destructive virus ever. This virus was discovered by McAfee yesterday, and there is no repair yet for this kind of virus. This virus simply destroys the Zero Sector of the Hard Disc, where the vital information is kept.

COPY THIS E-MAIL, AND SEND IT TO YOUR FRIENDS.

REMEMBER: IF YOU SEND IT TO THEM, YOU WILL BENEFIT ALL OF US.

And here’s the reply I sent him …

Brian, I really hate to belabour the obvious, but … !

For the past eight or nine years, I’ve owned at least one, if not more, Apple Macintoshes; Apple’s computers, for many years have run either Mac OS, or Mac OS X; neither of which are vulnerable to malicious software which is aimed at the Windoze based pc’s which make up the bulk of the world’s home computers.

Secondly, I wouldn’t be getting any kind of virus alert from Microsoft, nor would I expect to; Mac OS X is made by Apple for their Macintosh range of computers and servers; it would only affect my Mini, if I had duel booted it to run a Windoze partition; something I neither choose, nor have the budget, to do. As such, my machine’s updates and virus alerts come from Apple.

And thirdly … ! PHEW!

Thirdly, there seems to be no one sign of any originating email address, with this; this really looks like a ‘panic’ email!

Phew!

I’m just hoping he gets me point!!

•••••

Actually, do you remember me writing, a while back, about an apparently kosher email I’d had, from somebody called Katherine Poll?

Well …

I had a comment from a fellow blogger, called Sarah Bonds; she’d seemingly had the same email, from Ms Poll.

And it seems I was right …

That was one iffy site; it downloads a rather nasty Trojan, complete with a key logger.

You can read my post, here, and Sarah’s, here.

So, while I’m ok — most viruses, as I’ve already told people, will slide off Mac OS X — I thought it best to let you know NOT to download anything from Katherine Poll.

•••••

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna follow up something. Remember me saying Movie Night Adrian knew his stuff on the ’net side of things? I’ve just had word from him that BT Home Hubs seem to be the subject of some serious attacks …

I wanna make sure I know how to change the necessary settings …