"Dave Trapnell" <dtresearch@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:eii3nv85svkfks0k9so85fr6knmn901ck1@4ax.com...

Please scan your computers for viruses.

I have so far received more than a thousand Worm.Automat.AHB
viruses (viri?) in my inbox, They are sometimes coming in at
about eight or more per hour, and as they are more than 1/8
megabytes each, they are becoming difficult to manage, as my
inbox fills up and my legitimate email starts to bounce.

I don't know exactly how the virus works, so I can't say for
sure if someone downloads the group into Outlook Express,
whether the virus can find the email addresses contained in
the Usenet Postings, but just to be safe, if you have not
done so please update your virus definitions and scan your
computer(s), or use one of the free or one-shot scanners.

The definition for this virus was included in a supplemental
Symanted LiveUpdate that was released last Thursday,
9/18/03.

If anyone knows a way to determine the source of these
emails, please let me know.

This virus has its own smtp engine so if it is active on
your system, you won't see any results of its activity in
your outbox.

Thanks
Dave

Hi Dave,

Good advice.

you're not alone, but that's no consolation. I've received about 2000, all
around 140-150kb, since 18.09.03. Also have lost genuine mail due to isp
limits being reached overnight.

It appears that the current plague is capable of harvesting emails addies
from newsgroups and also is capable of stripping common munges from email
addresses (ie. it will strip NOSPAM from 'leavemeNOSPAM@alone.com)
It also appears that this crap can/does pick up 'reply-to' addresses, so
these should be removed for the duration.
I would recommend a program callled 'Mailwasher'. It is a free of charge
server-side mail checker and allows you to delete the messages you don't
want without downloading to your own pc. Have a look at:
http://www.mailwasher.net/

I'm not associated with them, I just use and highly appreciate their
program.

Fwiw. Don't 'bounce' the crap messages, just delete them from your ISP
server. Trying to bounce the messages (a) adds to already congested email
traffic at isp level and (b) most of the servers used by this crap are fake
(therefore un-bounceable) anyway, thus generating more traffic.

Keep all AV def's up to date, scan regularly/often and don't ever be tempted
to open any attachment.
Hopefully this will fade away quite soon.

Good luck.

Nick.