BIG WARNING - FT email address being used for virus
 

Apologies if this is in the wrong place, but I guess this will get the widest audience.

I have just received an email with the sunbject:
"Undeliverable mail--"Entertainment Group""
which has been sent to the email address which is published in my profile here, was created solely for that purpose and which has only ever been published there.

This email contains the text:
"The following mail can't be sent to [email protected]:

From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Entertainment Group
The attachment is the original mail
"
The two attachments are a sexually explicit (gay) JPG file, and a visual basic script (.SCR file) which I strongly recommend not running.

Has anyone else got this?
If so then I guess someone has found a way of trawling the profiles for addresses, but if not then I guess I need to talk to the very small number of FTers who have sent me mail through my profile.

It goes without saying that I have never sent an email to the address [email protected] .

[This message has been edited by christep (edited 09-15-2002).]

[This message has been edited by christep (edited 09-15-2002).]

If a moderator moves this thread, please let us know where to look to follow it. I've received spam to my profile's hotmail address but I took it that they got the address from hotmail, not flyertalk.

see also:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum15/HTML/002466.html

for BA specific spam

Someone more techno than me might be able to advise on this? If you type any user name into Google you get the supplied user email address showing up. i.e. type in - 'christep', 'warrenlm', 'ozstamps' etc, etc.

OK, no big deal as those addresses do show up here if someone looks. But that is a very slow way to "harvest" them. Maybe someone has been able to type a search string into Google like "all users At Flyertalk" or whatever, and get a huge list being thus generated that could be used to spam??

My thought is that this thread is more correctly in 'OMNI', but probably warrants 'Community' due to its general concern to most here I guess.

------------------
~ Glen ~ Calling all United 1K Members - please join .. www.1Kflyers.com


[This message has been edited by ozstamps (edited 09-15-2002).]

I am aware of the BA spam, but this is worse than spam (which is just unwanted email) - it has a visual basic script attached with a message that leads you to open the attachment, hence running the script - I haven't done this obviously, so I don't know what the script is, but it is bound to screw with your pc some way.

Interestingly, harvesting all the flyertalk email addresses is trivial:

Google Search


Do we really want this, or would we prefer that at least this area of the Flyertalk site is hidden from Google and other search engines?


[This message has been edited by christep (edited 09-15-2002).]

Thanks for that link christep. Yes, that is exactly the kind of thing I wondered if it were possible to readily index. All the addresses there are readily accessible here of course, so are not 'secret' in that sense. I guess folks can and do use Yahoo or Hotmail if their home address is not considered wise?

Your point is well taken though about being careful of any possible Virus. Thanks for the timely warning. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

------------------
~ Glen ~ Calling all United 1K Members - please join .. www.1Kflyers.com

[This message has been edited by ozstamps (edited 09-15-2002).]

I've not received the spam, but then I tried the search in Google & my e-mail didn't come up. Wonder if your method hit a particular forum.

What steams me is the msn account I'm currently using. I've used the address nowhere, average 10 spams a week, and at least half of them are porn related. I'll be glad when all my miles post & I can go somewhere else...

JP

Dont bet on it. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif Just type your user name into Google and you get this.


------------------
~ Glen ~ Calling all United 1K Members - please join .. www.1Kflyers.com



[This message has been edited by ozstamps (edited 09-15-2002).]

I just used same google search for another organization that I am involved with. We have a puplic website with email addresses listed. Nothing came up on google.

[This message has been edited by mikey1003 (edited 09-15-2002).]

You have to use the text specific to the site you are trying to find. If the site doesn't use the exect text "The E-mail address for" or whatever they use here you don't get any results.

If you use an e-mail address, it's only logicial to assume that at some stage it will get on a list someplace. Make sure your antivirus is up to date, your firewall up to date, etc. Zone Alarms offers a free fire wall for personal use that is incredibly efficient at stopping things even before they get to your antivirus software.

....................

I typically enter my email address in a form that cannot be harvested by a computer, but can be read by a human, e.g.

"johnsmith at earthlink dot net"
"foobar at hotmail dot com"

However, this is not possible on FlyerTalk, since changing your email address causes a new password to be sent to the new address, and I guess you'd get locked out of your account since you wouldn't be able to find out your new password.

As an alternative, you could put your email address in another field, such as "Interests".

hmmm my name doesn't work. Does that make me lucky or just insignificant? hehee

I've received some very offensive e-mail in the last few months. The unsubscribe links
look like a bunch of scrambled letters, amd I've heard replying just comfirms a valid address, so I delete everything Maybe this is related.