Advice on dealing with the Klez virus?

I've been getting a lot of email sent to me from the Klez virus lately....

This one is really insidious. It falsifies the "from" address in the email.... What it does is when it infects a computer, it uses one of the addresses in the address book, and uses that as the "from" address. So the person it seems to be "from" is not necessarily the one infected, it just means that their email address was in the address book of the person infected....

Any advice from the experts here on how we can all deal with this?

I'm essentially immune from infection by email viruses, but that's because I use an "old-style" email program - Pine - on a Unix account I use specially for email. Viruses are essentially targeted at Windows, so if you stay away from reading your email on a Windows machine, you are probably safe. However, the solution I use is a bit of a "techie"-type solution which is not easy for everyone to implement (though it's truly "bullet-proof").... What are some simpler and easier to use solutions?

- Dien Rice


Read more about the Klez worm....

preaching to the choir.

The thing is that people insist on clicking on attachments, instead of saving them and scanning them first. I had an exchange with someone on another board about this. He didn't know just how 'stealth' this one really is, and was surprised that the thing could fake a 'from' address.

Someone in the same thread remarked that he clicked it because he was curious to see what it was!

Another thing that is universally accepted is to preview HTML messages as they arrive. And it dismays me to get a message from an ezine publisher announcing his change to HTML. Crackers can now imbed malicious code in the HTML that will do the damage if you just read the message. I usually just unsubscribe.

Unfortunately, the masses will wait until they hear there's a problem from the least literate computer users on the planet - the news guys.

Education is the key.
(Speaking as a burned-out teacher, I won't hold my breath.)

BTW, I envy you the Unix box. I used to use Elm, and never got the hang of Pine. I'm about ready to leave Windows completely (in spite of the fact that 2000 is pretty good) because the Windows platform is such an easy (lousy code from Micro$oft) and ubiquitous (predatory marketing practices) target.

Mary
(My bias is showing, you say? Well DUH!)