Virus Notice

Question

Hi All,
I own a Macbook and I've been communicating with a seller on eBay. We have recently sent messages to each other via direct email instead of through eBay. Yesterday, I received this message from him:
+"My anti-virus software has discovered a hidden virus on your computer that implants itself into your emails as a .msg file. Please cdommunicate with me only via eBay until you are sure your computer is virus free. If you do not have an antivirus program, you can go to www.antivirus.com and run HOUSECALL to get whatever virus/worm is currently in your system. I have a minor college degree in Computer Science and this is not a good virus to have. Best of luck."+
After I inquired if he had gotten the virus, he sent me this message:
+"No. I did not get the virus, but I use Trend Mirco products and it gave me this warning which is the first time it ever gave me a specific email address, so I thought you should know. I guess they have MAC virus definitions. Here is the "gist of the message from Trend Micro" ...< SUBJECT>Your security software found and took action against a dangerous email message. < MESSAGE BODY > Trend Micro PC-cillin Internet Security has detected a message containing dangerous software. You will find the message in question attached to this notification in the form of a harmless text file. If you need to read the original message, please open only the text file, not the original. As a further precaution, do NOT save the original message as a message file (files with the ".msg" or ".oft" suffix at the end) to keep your computer safe from infection."+
In response to this, I downloaded and have been running ClamXav but I have yet to find any viruses on my Macbook. However, I'm not sure I'm properly using the software and if I have checked my entire computer.
So, I have a few questions.
Is this guy smoking dope? (I.e., should I be worried?)
Has anyone else had this problem?
Am I taking the right approach?
Any suggestions on using the ClamXav?
Also, other than my Macbook, I have emailed this seller from my work computer, which is a PC, but it should be very secure since I work for a military contractor.
Thanks in advance for your input. Sorry for the long post, but I figured it would help in getting a direct answer to the problem.
Daryll

Answer 1

Dirk Tanner wrote:
Hi All,
I own a Macbook and I've been communicating with a seller on eBay. We have recently sent messages to each other via direct email instead of through eBay. Yesterday, I received this message from him:
+"My anti-virus software has discovered a hidden virus on your computer that implants itself into your emails as a .msg file. Please cdommunicate with me only via eBay until you are sure your computer is virus free. If you do not have an antivirus program, you can go to www.antivirus.com and run HOUSECALL to get whatever virus/worm is currently in your system. I have a minor college degree in Computer Science and this is not a good virus to have. Best of luck."+
The last successful major malware for Macintosh was the autostart worm of 1998. Since then there have not been any major attacks. There have been a few, very few, minor trojan and social engineering attacks, but none of them has been remotely successful and none of them behave as described. He's scamming you.
After I inquired if he had gotten the virus, he sent me this message:
+"No. I did not get the virus, but I use Trend Mirco products and it gave me this warning which is the first time it ever gave me a specific email address, so I thought you should know. I guess they have MAC virus definitions. Here is the "gist of the message from Trend Micro" ...< SUBJECT>Your security software found and took action against a dangerous email message. < MESSAGE BODY > Trend Micro PC-cillin Internet Security has detected a message containing dangerous software. You will find the message in question attached to this notification in the form of a harmless text file. If you need to read the original message, please open only the text file, not the original. As a further precaution, do NOT save the original message as a message file (files with the ".msg" or ".oft" suffix at the end) to keep your computer safe from infection."+
Either he's lying or that's a false positive.
In response to this, I downloaded and have been running ClamXav but I have yet to find any viruses on my Macbook. However, I'm not sure I'm properly using the software and if I have checked my entire computer.
If you have a virus it's the first one since 1998.
So, I have a few questions.
Is this guy smoking dope? (I.e., should I be worried?)
No, you should not be worried.
Has anyone else had this problem?
No.
Am I taking the right approach?
Sure.
Any suggestions on using the ClamXav?
Keep it around in case there is ever a real virus, but don't worry.
Also, other than my Macbook, I have emailed this seller from my work computer, which is a PC, but it should be very secure since I work for a military contractor.
Famous last words. The only completely secure Windows box is one which is never connected to the Internet.
Thanks in advance for your input. Sorry for the long post, but I figured it would help in getting a direct answer to the problem.
Daryll