Will Sobig.F slow down the Internet in 45 minutes?

Internet Traffic Report ^ | Aug 22, 2003

[AdmSmith]

Check the Internet Weather:

http://www.internettrafficreport.com/main.htm

The Internet Traffic Report monitors the flow of data around the world. It then displays a value between zero and 100. Higher values indicate faster and more reliable connections.

[AdmSmith]

We will see in 45 minutes.

[Lazamataz]

Nothing will ever happen to anything.

Ever.

Anywhere.

[Frank_Discussion]

LOL! Yeah, everyone will rush to check the speed of the internet at 1:00pm, and it'll slow down!

What a self-fulfilling prophecy!

[antivenom]

I'm ready...and very curious too!

[Aerohawk]

My husband has this in his Yahoo e-mail account and everytime we try to run the fix-it patch from Symantec, it says the virus is not detected on our computer. He's still getting over 200 e-mails a day though, so it's on there somewhere. I think I'll disconnect and shut down the computer here shortly just in case.

[dfwgator]

Here's my fear. That inevitably someone is going to find a way bring the entire Internet to a halt, and the resulting panic will send the stock market crashing.

[Fury]

Nothing will ever happen to anything.

Ever.

Anywhere.

What if I am not logged in?

[ravingnutter]

My husband has this in his Yahoo e-mail account and everytime we try to run the fix-it patch from Symantec, it says the virus is not detected on our computer. He's still getting over 200 e-mails a day though, so it's on there somewhere. I think I'll disconnect and shut down the computer here shortly just in case.

I started getting mail delivery failure notifications from people I know I did not e-mail, so I ran Norton and it detected the SoBigF virus. I then ran the fix it tool from Symantec and it said it detected no SoBigF virus. To be on the safe side, I ran Norton again and this time it detected no viruses at all. So...maybe you should run an anti-virus scan again to be sure.

[Ex-Dem]

Uh oh, North America just lost 1 point.

[lelio]

What if I am not logged in?

The worm knows you're in the shower.

[headsonpikes]

Fascinating links! Thanks.

[billbears]

Agreed, never seen that link. Pretty interesting. As for the internet slowing to a crawl, I doubt it

[lelio]

You're getting failure notices from people you don't know as someone else sent out an email with your faked return address. Its just something that comes with normal SMTP email: anyone can say they are anyone else.

And there's nothing you can do about someone in LA sending mail to someone in NYC faking your email address of you in Indianapolis.

So you're the unfortunate receiptant of someone not patching their computer.

I wish these virus writers would get a little more original and start emailing out images from My Pictures to random people.

[willieroe]

I started getting mail delivery failure notifications from people I know I did not e-mail, so I ran Norton and it detected the SoBigF virus...

Yes, that's exactly what happens - according to CNet, "The virus grabs e-mail addresses from several different locations on a computer, including the Windows address book and Internet cache, and sends e-mails to each one. The virus also forges the source of the message using a randomly selected e-mail address so that the infected message appears to come from someone else."

[AdmSmith]

The present scores are

84 N America
78 Europe
54 Asia
58 Australia
77 S America

[AdmSmith]

The present scores are

84 N America
78 Europe
54 Asia
58 Australia
77 S America

[MineralMan]

"I started getting mail delivery failure notifications from people I know I did not e-mail, so I ran Norton and it detected the SoBigF virus"

You probably don't have the virus at all. Instead, someone else does who has you in their Outlook address book. This virus steals names from the address books of infected PC's, then uses those names in the From address block in the header.

I don't even use Outlook, but I'm getting notices from places I've never heard of that I've sent them a virus. I do not. It is the spoofed From address from someone else who has my name in their address book.

You can relax. Just don't open _any_ attachments.

[jrhepfer]

Just because you are getting the e-mails does not mean you are infected. Also, if someone sends you an e-mail saying you are infected, THAT doesn't mean you are infected either.

SoBig works like this. It infects a computer. It sends out copies of itself to random or all addresses in the person's e-mail address book. Here's the clinker, instead of the infected e-mail being "from" the computer that's infected, the virus randomly picks addresses from the address book to put in the "from" field in the e-mail.

For example, if I had 2 addresses in my address book :georgew"at"whitehouse.gov and billgates"at"microsoft.com and my computer got infected. The virus could send a copy of itself to georgew"at"whitehouse.gov and it would look like it came from billgates"at"microsoft.com.

It's called "spoofing". Very tricky to track down who actually has the virus. Your best bet is to keep your computer up to date with patches from Microsoft and to keep your antivirus software updated. Never open e-mail from someone you don't know and never open attachments that you didn't ask for from someone.

I hope this helps clear the air a little.

Regards,

Jim

[eyespysomething]

I wish these virus writers would get a little more original and start emailing out images from My Pictures to random people.

ROFLMAO!!!

Now THAT would be interesting!!

[dogbyte12]

Does anybody know if overclocking is only done manually, or can it be done through the keyboard as well? Is there any danger of a virus that specifically tries to in effect melt the hardware from it being run at dangerous speeds or parameters?