VIRUS with Bram as sender

[John Beckett]

I should take a little longer checking, but in view of the potential for
damage I'm sending a preliminary opinion:

A message has just been sent to the vim_multibyte list.
Header includes:

From: br...@moolenaar.net
To: vim-mu...@vim.org
Subject: Mail Transaction Failed
Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2008 11:12:38 +0200

Body is:
The message cannot be represented in 7-bit ASCII encoding
and has been sent as a binary attachment.

File attached:
doc.zip

Zip contains single file:
doc.pif
which is the 'I-Worm/Mytob.AP' virus (for Windows, obviously).

Moral of story:
- Anyone can send a mail and spoof the "From" address.
- We may see a flurry of viruses sent to various lists.
- Particularly Windows users should STOP AND THINK
before opening attachments.

John

[JohnBeckett]

Follow up: I just deleted the message from the archive at
http://groups.google.com/group/vim_multibyte

John

[Tony Mechelynck]

Note that unlike Bram's usual mailings, this one has a naked email
address as the from-line. I moved it aside to a "Spam - or not?" mailbox
"folder" without opening.

The fact that I'm on Linux makes me immune to some common viruses, but
the first step in protection against malware is to avoid opening just
any "unusual" mail. This applies to all platforms whatsoever.

Best regards,
Tony.
--
"Our vision is to speed up time, eventually eliminating it."
-- Alex Schure

[Tony Mechelynck]

On 18/12/08 17:22, Christian MICHON wrote:
[...]
> Bram's funny signatures is not in the email: it's not from him.

Right.

>
> Side note: windows users should compile their own binaries :)
>

Not necessarily: Steve Hall's Vim distributions
https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=43866&package_id=39721
are a reliable source of Vim executables for Windows. It is of course
/possible/ to compile one's own binaries (I've even written a couple of
HowTo pages on the subject).

Best regards,
Tony.
--
All of the true things I am about to tell you are shameless lies.
-- The Book of Bokonon / Kurt Vonnegut Jr.