TechDish: How to Deal with a Hotmail Virus

Posted on: Fri, 08/27/2010 - 08:24 — us104_admin

Hey kiddies, in honor of the Minnesota State Fair, it's TechDish-on-a-stick Friday! If you're heading to the Great Minnesota Get Together, we'd love to hear your stories, see your photos, and essentially live out our dreams through your experiences. So if you've got a fun tale to tell, or weird/funny/amazing photos to share, send us an email at techdish@ideascomputers.com.

This week we're talking about how a virus can infiltrate your email account, and specifically, we're talking Hotmail. Picture this: you've had a long day at the computer, decide to kick off and watch a movie then turn in for the night. Somewhere from the time you left the keyboard to the time you returned, your hotmail account send out messages to everyone in your contacts that you were completely unaware of. Gaah! Now you've got friends replying with confused looks on their faces, and a few unfortunate souls who actually clicked the links in the email (which helps the virus spread).

Some Examples:

(Names have been removed to protect the unaware; links have been removed, well, because you just don't want them).

from ##### ##### <#########@hotmail.com>
to ###########@gmail.com
date Thu, Aug 26, 2010 at 6:40 AM
subject Missed talking to you the other day
mailed-by hotmail.com

hey, I hate not seeing you all the time anymore. I feel like you're always working. Anyways, maybe this will cheer you up. I found a news article that describes in detail ways you can make some excess money. It's easier than it sounds You should really check out this news article they wrote: Visit the article

And here's another one:

from ##### ##### <#########@hotmail.com>
to ###########@gmail.com
date Wed, Aug 25, 2010 at 7:49 PM
subject Lol what recession, friend?
mailed-by hotmail.com

I've learned that it's so easy to make money on the internet... check out this article i found: View .dat newsarticle!

So, as you can see these are emails using personal tone and normal words. There's no suggestions of sexual content, profanity or spamming of links that your SPAM filter looks for; plus, this is coming from someone you probably have in your contacts, so these shoot straight to your inbox. And that's where the danger lies: the idea behind this virus is to spread like wildfire; and with the links included in an email from one of your friends, it's easy to click before considering it may be harmful.

So what do I do?

If your the recipient of one of these emails, doing nothing is actually a good tact. You can freely open these emails, as they are not usually coming with attachments, and if they are, most of today's webmail services have built-in virus scanning on attachments before you can download them. However, as tempting as it may be, Do Not. Click. The Links. Clicking the links puts you at risk for infection, potentially causing harm to your computer and your ego as you are ridiculed by your friends.

Of course, you could always be a good friend and kindly tell the sender what is happening so they can fix the problem.

I'm the one sending. What do I do?

Hey, we've got you covered to! Here's easy removal tools, on a stick!

1. Run Windows Update to ensure your operating system is up to date.

2. Check for updates on your antivirus software.

3. Run a full system scan with your antivirus software, removing all threats when they are found.

4. Don't download funky attachments or click odd links in your email ever again.

Seriously, this one is that easy. We're talking about a virus whose strength is through its power to spread rapidly, not in its level of difficulty in its removal. Now you can enjoy your Camel on a Stick without worrying about your email going crazy!