OT: Spam and Viruses on the Samba mailing list was: RE: [Samba] Re: samba Digest, Vol 9, Issue 41

[Jason Balicki]

Darrik Spaude wrote:
>I've been getting a lot of messages with attachments on this 
>list, but I
>haven't opened any of the e-mails to see if the attachments 
>were legitimate.
>I also started getting tons of "MS Security...", "Microsoft", 
>etc. e-mails
>with attachments which I have not opened either (especially 
>figuring that
>the "Microsoft" e-mail contains a virus, although our filter 
>should have
>caught that one...).
>
>Anyone else getting loads of MS e-mails or Samba list e-mails with
>attachments?

A lot of the traffic being generated (specifically the ones referencing
Microsoft) off this list recently is because of the Gibe or Swen
(same thing) worm.  Do a google search for this if you're interested
in the details.

While this is a problem, another generator of useless traffic off this
list is the Outlook "Out of the office" autoresponder and misconfigured
email servers that bounce messages back to the list for one reason 
or another (usually a virus laden message will trigger this.)

Take this as a kindly reminder to those of you who administer your
mail servers to try and do something (like: stop your virus notification
programs -- most new email worms and viruses forge the sender anyway
so you're not doing anyone any favors).

Also, those of you who are tempted to tell the world that you're
on vacation:  don't.  If you must, use an intelligent auto responder
that you can filter out the mailing lists that you belong to.  If 
your first instinct is to say "that's too hard" please remove 
yourself from any mailing list you belong to and have someone 
hurl empty Pringles cans at you for eternity.

Every time I post to the Samba list I get at least half a dozen
"Out of the office" replies (sometimes more, depends on the season)
and it triggers another round of viruses sent to me.

Anyway, rant over.

--J(K)