The SoBig F@mm virus

Last night I checked my e-mail an received THIRTY copies of the SoBig [email="F@mm"]F@mm[/email] virus. Luckily, since MSBlaster last week, I've been updating Norton on a daily basis, so no harm came of it. An hour later I checked the mail again and got ANOTHER THIRTY copies of it. So I left Outlook running (mine is set to Send / Receive every five minutes) and over the rest of the evening received it about another thirty times, along with another five this morning.

I've never seen anything like this and it has really brought home to me personally just how important online security is. Symantic say it was only discovered yesterday (19th August). Has anybody else had this happen and on this scale ?

Hello Mr Sesmesesles,

I got up this morning and found that I had 348 messages in my inbox. All but 3 of them were as a result of the SoBig F@mm virus. I don't think I have the virus, but will download and run the fix just to be sure.

Tom

What is the fix? I did a search and didn't come up with it.

Hello Lebkuecher,

If you click on the "SoBig" in Mr Sesmesesles's post you will go to Norton's site that has more information and a fix that you can download.

I ran the fix and am not infected, but am still getting email's with the virus attached.

Tom

Thanks Tom

Just ran the scan and am clean, for now.

Update...

In the last 8 hours I have received another 58 email's with the virus attached. This is getting interesting...

Tom

I got two emails and zapped them. I'm clean. Good thing my boss is out of the plant. He opens every attachment even when he does not recognize the source or message. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/banghead.gif I am the opposite and probably delete some important stuff. I noticed that when I tried to set up a firewall it asked if one wanted access granted to outsiders and he clicked yes every time!!! We have had to flush his machine five or six times in two years as a result.

The webmaster account recieved 26 yesterday and 43 so far today. Now you all know why I don't open attachments that are sent to the webmaster account. It's a web-based email but it's MY computer and Norton won't scan it.

I got 98 emails between 11pm last night and 10am today, and only TWO of them were legitimate. One or two were spam, and all the rest were this bug. I haven't gotten any more of these in the last couple of hours though, so somebody probably stepped on the bug and made it go away.

I have not had a single one yet. (I'm starting to feel left out ----- NOT!)

Chuck

I had one this morning.
Not the SoBig one, I forget the name.
Norton caught it.

Simple question: Is there a decent freeware virus checker out there?

My subscription to Norton ran out a while back, and there's no way that I'll be able to afford to continue the subscription.

Ideas?

Try AVG 6.0, it is free.

Well, after over 250 infected e-mails I finally stopped the flood.

How ?

Desperate situations require desperate measures and so I blanket e-mailed almost everybody in my address book (not something I do lightly) with a polite, but firm request that they update their AV software immediately and continue to do so in future, for the benefit of all mankind.

Within half an hour the flooding had stopped /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

[ QUOTE ]
...there's no way that I'll be able to afford to continue the subscription.

[/ QUOTE ]

Can you afford to reformat your hard drive? Lose everything on it in the process? Possibly have to buy a new hard drive? $24.95 is cheap.

Or if you can't afford the subscription, at least make sure you can afford to backup often.

[ QUOTE ]
Zelandeth said:
...there's no way that I'll be able to afford to continue the subscription.

[/ QUOTE ]

A years subscription to Norton costs just £17 in the UK, which is probably less than the Inova X1 will cost when it is finally released here, but I bet you'll be one of the first in the queue for one of those.

It's all a question of priorities in the end.

I'm sorry, but I find this attitude totally and utterly irresponsible and it's because of this kind of attitude that I have had to spend the best part of a day dealing with this bollocks /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif

Going online without adequate and regularly updated AV software is the cyber equivalent of having unsafe sex and if you can't understand that then you are too stupid to own a computer, let alone be allowed on the Internet, IMHO.

Sorry for the rant, but it's been a long, hard day.

Strangely enough, the stereotypical view of the Scots from England is that they are mean with money. Can you imagine ?

There were some viruses that would destroy the BIOS of your motherboard, rendering that inoperable as well.

[ QUOTE ]
Sasha said:
[ QUOTE ]
...there's no way that I'll be able to afford to continue the subscription.

[/ QUOTE ]

Can you afford to reformat your hard drive? Lose everything on it in the process? Possibly have to buy a new hard drive? $24.95 is cheap.

[/ QUOTE ]

Zelandeth just wanted some free anti-virus software. It is his choice to not use something like Norton AV that costs money. I am sure he is aware that a free AV will not be as good as something which costs money. That is his choice.

I know many people who have computers on the web. Most of them have cable internet, and are connected 24/7. Some of the people I know even their computers on all of the time, but nobody I know has ever been infected so badly they had to wipe their hard drive, or lost files, or even had a ruined BIOS because of a virus or worm. Yes, the possiblity does exist, but it is not very likely.

I must be extremely lucky then, my PC is connected to the internet 24/7 via broadband, shared with my brother's PC. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif I've never bought any anti-virus software either. The only 'security' I have for my PC is the firewall in my broadband router, and another firewall software, zonealarm(freeware). I never click on attachments I'm not expecting, and delete all junk mail. I've been virus free all this time, and never had to reformat my harddrive either.