[Techtalk] Question about a virus risk

[E. Sterling Wall]

Hi all...

	Just like I'm sure everyone else has, I've been getting loads of emails
with octet-stream attachments and no actual text, mostly from people I
don't even know. Some of them are obviously the klez virus, and some of
them appear to be copy cats or variants because they don't fit exactly
the same pattern, or they come out differently. Anyway, they weren't
worrying me at all since I have absolutely no Windows software on my
laptop, until YESTERDAY.

	Last night I was logged in to a KDE desktop instead of my usual Gnome
desktop and suddenly a kmail window for a new mail openned up
spontaneously with no "from", "to", or "body" text, but an attachment
which was marked as being application/octet-stream. I closed the window
and didn't save or send it, but now I'm worried...

	What exactly is in this virus, and is it possible that it has infected
my LINUX-ONLY computer? 

	I normally use Evolution for mail, and don't have any settings in kmail
at all (which may be why the mail didn't send itself yesterday). I think
I do have wine installed because at the time of loading the OS I thought
it might be useful at some future date. 



-- sterling

Sumgai Technology
http://www.sumgai.co.uk
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