Wednesday, June 14, 2006

'YOU'VE GOT TROJANS!'

I can't believe I fell for that old 'log in here to view your pictures' scam, but I did... just days after my son got our account TOS'd for spamming over 600 emails... while he was asleep!  Did I change my password immediately?  No... I just 'assumed' that the page hadn't loaded because my computer was already over loaded.  A few days later... poof!  I get a message from MAILER-DAEMON citing a 'delivery problem' with some emails I never sent.  Finally a light went on in my head, but the damage was already done.  Later that night my account was once again TOS'd for spamming.
So... here's what I have pieced together. 
On the 6th of June my son received an email stating that he had unviewed pictures in his You've Got Pictures inbox.  He logged in to the link but the page didn't load.  He X'd out and forgot about it.
On the 9th of June our account was suspended for spam coming from my son's account.  The spam email was entitled 'You have unviewed pictures in your inbox'.
Our account was restored, but a full virus scan keeps getting interrupted and is not completed.
On the 8th I receive an email entitled 'You have (6) pictures'.  Unaware that my son had received a similar email just days earlier I open the email, try to log on, it fails, I forget about it.
On the 13th of June I get 3 returned emails from MAILER-DAEMON, which I never sent in the first place.  A quick trip to my sent box of my email shows that there are more emails that I never sent.   I immediately do a full virus scan.  There are approximately 20 alerts, all the same type of Trojan but on 3 different accounts.  I delete them, remove my restore points, empty my temporary internet and history files, restart my computer a number of times, restart again, reset my restore points...
And get TOS'd.
After restoring my account and changing all the passwords... again... I edited the blocked words list in all of our email controls to  reject any mail containing: [You've Got ( * ) Pictures!] and [unviewed pictures]. 
A word of caution:  Don't get complacent.  When AOL says they will never ask for your password or billing information... they mean it.  You do not need a password to see your You've Got Pictures.  If you got the email in the first place then you're already logged in to AOL, you don't need to log in a second time.  If you are prompted to do so, chances are its a bad email.  Delete it!  Quite honestly I knew better and I'm mad at myself for falling for it.
 
This is a screenshot of what a YGP email should look like.  Please note the reminder up at the top of the email.  Now that you know what to look for, if you still open and log on to a phoney you almost deserve to get a stinkin' virus (like I did! Grrrr!).

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good to know! I too crashed my computer last week, (Not with trojan though) I lost all my photos :( and all my music...... bigger :(

Anonymous said...

What a thrash!  Glad you are back and not tos'd again today!  Now, about that virus scan I keep putting off ....

Anonymous said...

hmmm, guess i am lucky to say i've never used that part of aol.  Don't even know how to use it lol.    Sorry you had to go thru that... i hate when something happens that you don't know exactly how to go about fixing it without doing it more then once...  there are times I actually think of giving up on computers, though I'd go nuts for some time i'm sure.   too many things i don't know how to fix or if i tried i'd screw it up...and i can't afford someone to come in and do it for me... so logically, I don't belong on a computer at all.   As sure as I am that eventually things would fill the void (after all I didn't always have one)  the thought of being that much more alone again is not a very happy one.  

geez dorn.. all those kids and not one a computer geek!!

Anonymous said...

Grrr. I hate that crap. I hope you managed to ferret out all of the bad stuff on your computer.
-Paul

Anonymous said...

Of course, know you the way I know you, I expected something completely different when I read that headline.
-Paul

Anonymous said...

I hear ya... I fell for it a while back... it sucks...

be well,
Dawn

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the information.

Jeane

Anonymous said...

happy you got the problem solved, if I don't know what an email is or who it's from I delete it.  

Anonymous said...

so that one is floating around again. It got my DH but i caught it quickly and changed the password and ran virus protection. I got TOSd for send a email to many people at once grrr.... any way glad you are back on line


Deb

Anonymous said...

I have that email sitting in my spam folder!  Sorry Dorn! =(

Anonymous said...

Me too! I got the same email today and reported as spam.

Don't feel bad Dorn, I have fell for it too. LOL

hugs
Lahoma

Anonymous said...

Wow sorry to hear that jo....

You better watch yourself.... you can only get 6 tos's on aol and then they terminate your account...... :-x

But, glad your back online ^_^


~ CM ~


yeah aol is bad about those kinda emails..... No wonder aol is starting to go down the Crapper :-x

LOL

Anonymous said...

it is easy to get complacent regarding spam.  aol is good rejecting a majority of the spam from years ago, but it's those little stragglers that get through ... it just plain sucks.

600 emails...aol shouldn't penalize you & your family.  they should chop-chop on tracking to the end source.

simplymeally.blogspot.com