Possible virus/hoax attempt warning

[Mish19]

I received an email from "wellspan.org" saying they are writing to me on behalf of Verizon (my DSL) letting me know my email address has been sending out a lot of spam email. They also claimed my computer has been compromised and I have a hidden proxy in my computer now....however if I follow the downloadable instructions everything will be fine. Yeah suuuuuuure!
Well it just seemed fishy so I called Verizon and the guy said no way thats real. If it were the case they would be CALLING me.
He told me to delete the email and not to worry. Just wanted to warn anyone who gets an email like that from wellspan.org

 

[Dan Murphy]

Thanks, Michelle, for the heads up.

 

[Pin Wizard]

Thanks!!!

 

[AZKathy]

<a href='http://www.smileycentral.com/?partner=ZSzeb008' target='_blank'><img src='http://smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/23/23_30_114.gif' border=0></a>

 

[jfulcer]

Got this too, but I have Roadrunner and the message said the same thing pretty much. Two things gave it away for me:

1) The grammer was poor.

2) Roadrunner would never send me a zip file with my name on it - they would send me to a web page.

I am sure there are going to be a lot of people that fall for this one. The problem is that it's *not* a virus. Being the geek that I am, I scanned the file and it's a zip file inside a zip file that contains an executable file. That file is not a virus, so it must open a back door on your machine - exactly what the message is purported to warn you about.

 

[Dan Murphy]

I added this new layer of protection to my Panda today. I think Panda is really great, running concurrent with Norton.

http://www.pandasoftware.com/products/truprevent_tec/

Panda usually is first in on a naildown, before Norton.

 

[WebmasterAlex]

There have been a lot of threats like this. Anytime you get any email that says you are supposed to do anything and "open the attached file" DELETE IT, nobody does business that way.

 

[Virgo10]

I've been getting these too and I have Comcast.

What WebmasterAlex said. I also always check out the website of the supposed sender. That usually gives up to the moment information except for the PayPal settlement issue email I got. I thought it was a spoof (nothing on their homepage about it) and sent it to Paypal only to find out that it was the real deal.

Roberta

 

[cvemom]

Thanks for the alert guys!

 

[Robmom]

I got 4 similiar e-mails at work. I didn't open them because the attachments were zip files and I knew that it was a fake.

 

[Carl]

I got it, supposedly from SBC, but it was an attached exec file and they don't even work on a Mac, so I knew it was a fake.