[EOEE Newsletter] Email concerns - virus warnings

[EOEE Webservant - Jeff Conley]

Friends,
The prayerchain experienced several hours of downtime this week - due to
email problems on the server. All seems to be working fine now. Sorry for
any delay in prayer concerns going out!

While unrelated - the server is getting bombarded with a new kind of virus
spreading by email. Originally, the messages began as "You've received an
e-card" with the sender appearing to be legitimate websites.
Then a bunch went out with July 4th themes. Today they started pouring in
with a FAKE virus scare:

The message contained in the email is something similar to:

    ------------------------------
    Our robot has detected an abnormal activity from your IP address
    on sending e-mails. Probably it is connected with the last epidemic
    of a worm which does not have official patches at the moment.

    We recommend you to install this patch
    http://1.2.x.2/abcde$@DA123fghijklmnop to remove worm files
    and stop email sending, otherwise your account will be blocked.

    Customer Support Center Robot
    ------------------------------

How ironic that the virus spreads itself by scaring folks into taking action
thinking they are already infected.

It may be something you are already aware of, but any email asking you to go
to a "number" address (such as the above "http://1.2.3.4") instead of a
".com" or ".net", etc - is often malicious.

Once someone's computer is infected, the program can scan the hard drive for
other email addresses - and send a link out to them. If those folks also
click on the link and get infected, the process continues to multiply...

So... Without wanting to scare anyone, just a gentle reminder not to click
on suspicious emails or open attachments from people you don't know.

More information is available at:
    http://antivirus.about.com/

    And

    Http://www.ericconrad.com/


Praying all is well with you all!

At your service and in HIS service,
-Jeff Conley