ProZ.com Translation Forums

Virus in proz web mail! | Most likely nothing personal

Balaban Cerit — Wed, 01 Dec 2004 13:17:00 +0000

Forum: Safe computing
Topic: Virus in proz web mail!
Poster: Balaban Cerit
Post title: Most likely nothing personal

Sometimes such things may be motivated by personal grudges, etc. but nearly all the time there are no personal issues at all. People are scratching to make money by spamming a hundred million e-mail addresses, or trying to propagate their newly developed viruses, etc.

In the 90s, when the Internet got to play a larger in role in personal communications and commerce, the stage was set for such things. There was such a thing as "unsolicited posting" before the Internet. Now, such people have much greater capabilities, since e-mails cost nearly nothing and the Internet provides many new opportunities and was not designed as a medium where people can be traced easily.

[Edited at 2004-12-02 18:12]

Virus in proz web mail! | Spoof is gone!

alx — Wed, 01 Dec 2004 12:12:00 +0000

Forum: Safe computing
Topic: Virus in proz web mail!
Poster: alx
Post title: Spoof is gone!

Thank you all for reassuring me. Apparently it has stopped now. I've always been fascinated by the fact that even in virtual land, people can be troublemakers and try to hassle you, but the question is: why the hell?

Virus in proz web mail! | e-mail impersonation is a "growing business"

Balaban Cerit — Wed, 01 Dec 2004 07:10:00 +0000

Forum: Safe computing
Topic: Virus in proz web mail!
Poster: Balaban Cerit
Post title: e-mail impersonation is a "growing business"

It seems that many spammers (or virus senders, etc.) are more and more resorting to different techniques including e-mail impersonation (where they send e-mails to zillions of people and these e-mails seem to have come from your e-mail address; but if anyone inspects their full header information, it can be seen that these e-mails originate from dozens of different host addresses all over the world.

Currently, major e-mail service providers can't do anything about this. But this will change soon, possibly Internet users will lose some privacy in the process (or have to pay just for sending e-mails, as some companies are pushing for). Either way the consequences of this spamming/impersonation thing will be bad for all.

Virus in proz web mail! | Proz. is a secure site

Schwabamädle — Tue, 30 Nov 2004 23:19:00 +0000

Forum: Safe computing
Topic: Virus in proz web mail!
Poster: Schwabamädle
Post title: Proz. is a secure site

Hello (-:

Dont worry this has nothing to do with proz what happend here is that there is a technique used to gain unauthorized access to computers, whereby the intruder sends messages to a computer with an IP address indicating that the message is coming from a TRUSTED HOST. It happend to me too but not from proz.com
To engage in IP spoofing, a hacker must first use different techniques to find an IP address of a trusted host and then change the data headers so that it looks like that the data are coming from that host. (But now we learned something)

There a new routers and firewalls to prevent this!

Kind regards,
Andrea

Virus in proz web mail! | I've been spoofed, too! :-)

Dinny — Tue, 30 Nov 2004 16:41:00 +0000

Forum: Safe computing
Topic: Virus in proz web mail!
Poster: Dinny
Post title: I've been spoofed, too! :-)

This morning, strange e-mails appeared in my "work" mailbox, senders totally unknown, so I don't fall for these tricks, just cancel.
But as to "new contacts" I did actually get an e-mail the other day from a ProZ.com member through my profile, and I replied to that mail. So I guess I entered some weird circle in this way... I'll just be v e r y careful for the next few weeks so that I don't accidentally open one of these vicious things!

Sigh!

Virus in proz web mail! | Nothing to do with ProZ.com

Henry Dotterer — Tue, 30 Nov 2004 15:56:00 +0000

Forum: Safe computing
Topic: Virus in proz web mail!
Poster: Henry Dotterer
Post title: Nothing to do with ProZ.com

There is a thing email viruses do called "spoofing" that makes them look like they came from somewhere that they didn't. This is probably happening here. For more info, search the forums for "spoofing".

Virus in proz web mail!

alx — Tue, 30 Nov 2004 12:28:00 +0000

Forum: Safe computing
Topic: Virus in proz web mail!
Poster: alx

Hi there,

I got a (dirty) dozen of emails apparently containing viruses, according to their title, which I did not open, in my Proz free web mail.
Did anyone have them too and do we get rid of this plague?
There is no point in having a web mail service if it's so easy to hack as we especially cannot afford to transmit virus to clients!