Returned email stating I got a virus

[NeonWizard]

I got this today in my email inbox, the one that comes with the service provider. I can't figure is this is a hoax or real. I got AV and keep it updated. Also I got Ad Aware and Spybot. I checked the running processes, and nothing appears out of normal. The context of the email is below. Is it for real or is someone playing around?



Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1

Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit


¥»¤½¥qªº¦øªA¾¹°»´ú¨ì±z±Hµo¤F¤@«Ê§t¦³¯f¬rªº«H¥ó¦Ü¥»¨t²Î,½Ð¥ß§Y°w¹ï±zªº¹q¸£¶i¦æ²M¬r°Ê§@¡C

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This is a notice from Hosting Business server. You sent an email infected with a virus. Please take action and clean your computer....Received: (qmail 12586 invoked from network); 8 Jul 2004 22:01:54 -0000
Received: from s01060004e204d10c.vc.shawcable.net (HELO minim.com.tw) (24.84.57.17)
by a3.game.tw with SMTP; 8 Jul 2004 22:01:54 -0000
From: <my email address removed>
To: paul@minim.com.tw
Subject: Re: Your product
Date: Thu, 8 Jul 2004 14:51:20 -0700
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/mixed;
boundary="----=_NextPart_000_0003_00004602.00007ADA"
X-Priority: 3
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal

Content-Type: text/plain;
charset="Windows-1252"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Content-Type: application/octet-stream;
name="your_product.pif"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
Content-Disposition: attachment;
filename="your_product.pif"

[NemorY]

Dont download any attachments with e-mails saying "This is a anti-virus tool" or similar. Those are usually (99%) hoaxes.

[er0k]

well, the problem could be that you sent an attachment that was infected with a virus that you didnt know about. I've done the same thing before, it was around 9/11 or so, and a picture of the planes crashing into the building. Went to send it to one of my teachers and it turned out to have a virus. Scan the file with www.housecall.com 's scanner.

[Status]

Geez, id say its a complete hoax. your_product.pif. Thats the netsky worm i believe. So dont touch that

[NeonWizard]

Thanks for the replies. If there was an attachment with a virus, it probably got stripped off by the ISP because I don't have one in the email. I'll scan my computer, hopefully i don't have anything.

Thanks again.

[Tedob1]

although it never hurts to scan for viruses internet worms and viruses do a really fine job of spoofing email accounts so dont be surprised if you come up clean.

[xierox]

If you've got AV software and it's up to date, I'd say it's likely you didn't send it. It's possible for viruses to send themselves out and spoof the return address. For example, perhaps a friends computer has a virus and it's using your e-mail address (gotten from address book) as the reply to? This is what I was taught as work, anyways. Hope this helps.

Regards,
Xierox

/edit - forgot to put "(gotten from address book)"

[DjM]

There is a very good chance you are not infected. Netsky spoofs the senders address so when the e-mail hits a gateway scanning system and finds the virus, it sends a notification back to the sender to let them know. Geeezz I wish admins would turn this function off. With all the viruses that are spoofing address, notifications are becoming more of a pain than a help. I repeat, there is a very good chance your not infected if you keep your AV up to date, your address has just been spoofed thats all.

Cheers: