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False contact in e-mail address book.

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8 replies

by jloranger 1 view

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Recently a coworker forwarded an e-mail suggesting putting a contact named "!000" without an e-mail address, as the first contact in your book. Supposedly those viri that spread by using the address book will be foiled because the first contact is not valid. Would this work?

8 replies

by jloranger

Point value changed by question poster. I'm new to this point system, first question.

by chriswales

Generally it will not work.

Most of the Virii just send an email to each and every address listed. It does not check for validity/reliability/etc. They just broadcast their payload, ignoring anything that's invalid.

by pan 13 x

I very seriuosly doubt it, viruses send to every contact in an address book. the virus doesn't care about valid addresses.

by jereg

No, it won't work. Here's why. Suppose an email virus was written that stopped on the first entry. The next virus writer is going to know that and construct his virus to skip the first entry in the address book whatever it is. The best it could do is stop one virus. Maybe. One thing for sure, I wouldn't trust the security of my network based on an email from a coworker, or anybody else. We don't know who wrote the email. It could have been someone writing a virus hoping people would put that entry in their address books. He probably uses that as a trigger or something.
Good Luck.

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