The "AMWA Virus"

status: sporadic
Last Updated: 06/08/03

History: Sometime in April of 2002, several members of amwa started complaining of a virus that seemed to be originating from fellow members of the newsgroup. No one seemed to be certain whether or not someone's computer got infected or if it was a hacker. I don't know about everyone else, but for about 4 months or so, I was getting the virus regularly in by inbox (several times daily) until it trickled to a halt. After a long hiatus and as of June 8th 2003, it returned to my inbox within the past 2 weeks and I got it once again just today.

Identity: Usually some form of the Klez worm. Attatchment and header types can be anything including: a bounced back email, a blank message, a meaningless message, a site promotion, a game suggestion, a name or email as the return address, your own name or email as the return, a general greeting...etc. The infected email always and only "comes" from fellow long-established amwa regulars and does not include newbies (12 months or sooner).

Reason/Origin: Unknown. I haven't double-cheked to be absolutely for certain, but I have a very strong sneaking suspiscion that these headers have been forged as I don't believe for a minute that every single amwa reg from the past 4 years has caught this worm/virus.

Notice: these are my own personal theories on the matter:
Hypothesis #1: The virus originated either this way or something similar to that. Problem is, this specific instance happened two years ago.

Hypothesis #2: A single computer got infected and the address book it copied contains a VERY vast array of amwa regs' emails. Some of the names/emails addys I've gotten that have contained this virus include members who used to post all the way back to 1999 but don't post to amwa now. Problem is I've only gotten amwa regs' emails as returns and how many of us keep an address book that *only* has amwa'ers in it?

Hypothesis #3: Someone's doing it on purpose, no idea whom or why. Just can't prove it.


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