[dvwannabe]

Within the past week, I've received a bunch of e-mails with the following attachment:

DataChunks[1].htm

All the e-mails are from different people that I don't know and they all have different subject lines.

What gives?

[mrtew]

Sounds like it. I get viruses all the time. Thank god I have a Mac. Why write here about it though!

[Appleman]

I checked it with Virex, but their webpage didn't know of "DataChunks[1].htm" as being a virus.

[Atef's corpse]

Just trash them. If they're really htm files, they might contain some web bugs or malicious javascript. Wouldn't do anything to your Mac, but no need to open them.

[besson3c]

many of the modern PC viruses not only spoof the sender address, but randomize the subject and attachment names. There is not a whole lot that can be done.

[asxless]

If you are suspicious about an Email just drag it to your desktop and open it with BBEdit. BTW Zingg is much better than the built in "Open with..." for this.

You can read the contents with a plain text editor (like BBEdit) without triggering an html virus, sending a reply, etc. The attachment will also display in BBedit so you can read it's contents and determine if it 'code' or harmless.

asxless in iLand

[rw]

Those are probably the Klez virus (which won't affect your Mac). Search under "Klez" if you want more info.

[Peter]

I get those emails with random pictures/web pages in them, straight to the junk box and they dont return

[MasterBeta]

You get these emails because one of your PC using correspondents has the virus. The virus sends our random emails to people in thier address book (like you) that also contain the virus. The emails may not appear to be comming from the person, but could appear to be comming from someone in thier address book.

This happened to my sister and I'm still getting these emails from her even after she ran some virus software. She is basically afraid to use her PC on the internet, and not really smart enough to do a harddrive wipe and reinstall of windows. Brand new Dell. HA HA! I told her so..


They cannot infect the Mac, but you can pass it on by forwarding the emails to PC users.

[Appleman]

Originally posted by MasterBeta:
You get these emails because one of your PC using correspondents has the virus. The virus sends our random emails to people in thier address book (like you) that also contain the virus. The emails may not appear to be comming from the person, but could appear to be comming from someone in thier address book.

This happened to my sister and I'm still getting these emails from her even after she ran some virus software. She is basically afraid to use her PC on the internet, and not really smart enough to do a harddrive wipe and reinstall of windows. Brand new Dell. HA HA! I told her so..


They cannot infect the Mac, but you can pass it on by forwarding the emails to PC users.

I love our sisters! Mine the same: had to reinstall windos after replacing her erratic harddisk (one year old...).
Placed a 40 GB, only 13 GB seen by dos & windos. Seems to happen more with them.
I told her so to get a Mac, but no she wouldn't listen

[macmike42]

Originally posted by Appleman:
I love our sisters!

[Coxy]

When Mail automatically launches and runs AppleScript attachments, while making it possible for an AppleScript to replicate itself to people in your Address Book, we may just see the first email worm for Mac OS X.

Until that day, however, there's not a lot to worry about.

[Angus_D]

Originally posted by Coxy:
When Mail automatically launches and runs AppleScript attachments

I doubt that will happen.

[theolein]

One could make an applescript (or any executable) that could do a fair amount of damage to your system, but it would have to be done through social engineering as no attachments are run automatically on the Mac. I think the chances of getting hacked through bruteforce or other exploits are higher though. There aren't any known rootkits out for macosx yet, but it could well happen in the future.