Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie
Hi there,
There is an issue with role permissions that is being worked on at the moment.
If you are having trouble with access or permissions on regional forums please post here to get access: https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058365403/you-do-not-have-permission-for-that#latest

Virus over Instand Messenger?!?!

  • 05-08-2005 11:16am
    #1
    grumpytrousers
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,884 ✭✭✭


    Weird thing happened today; thought I'd share it.

    I run Trillian for my instant messaging and a former colleague of mine appeared to open a window and the following message came thru
    [12:16] XYZ: hey, is this you?
    [12:16] XYZ: (Link: http://www.vbulettin.com/profile.php?email=my_email@hotmail.com)http://www.vbulettin.com/profile.php?email=my_email@hotmail.com

    Then he immediately signed off. Now, the virus scanner here is pretty up to date, so for the hell i clicked on the link and sure enough a dialog box opened asking if i wanted to open or save the file in question. I clicked to save, and whaddya know, it seems to be an MS DOS batch file or summat.

    Alas, I've no way to open it, but it's a pretty insidious way of viruses spreading isn't it...


Comments

  • #2
    daywalker
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 552 ✭✭✭daywalker


    if you suspected it as a virus, why did you download it???

    even up-to-date virus scanners arent foolproof, fairly dangerous way of testing it.


  • #3
    grumpytrousers
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,884 ✭✭✭grumpytrousers


    daywalker wrote:
    if you suspected it as a virus, why did you download it???

    even up-to-date virus scanners arent foolproof, fairly dangerous way of testing it.
    Sorry - i've not suffered any harm whatsoever due to this; I suppose I was just asking had anybody else been on the wrong end of this and seen what harm this does.

    I used to do a bit of IT work back in the day and am fairly confident that downloading a file to the desktop is harmless; double clicking, on the other hand....

    I 'opened' it in notepad...

    If my 'confidence' is misplaced, I'm more than happy to be set right, mind...


  • #4
    daywalker
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 552 ✭✭✭daywalker


    grumpytrousers wrote:
    I 'opened' it in notepad...

    If my 'confidence' is misplaced, I'm more than happy to be set right, mind...

    Sorry didnt mean it like that :o .

    yeah opening it in notepad would not have ran it, you would have had to double-click it, generally running ms-dos batch files nowadays cannot do as much harm as it used to, this being due to the fact that later versions of windows restrict or dont even run msdos programs


  • #5
    LegacyUser
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 166,026 ✭✭✭✭LegacyUser


    I've seen it happen...

    In our office LAN, most people who use IM are on MSN, Trillian or Miranda. One day something like that came through to one of the girls from a buddy, and immediately started a file transfer to everyone who was online in her buddy list. Needless to say it was canned straight away, although I think one or two people accepted the tranfer. It only affected their local machine though.


Advertisement