Posted By Joe Ridley ethne@iosh.co.uk is? I have received an e-mail from this person with the following statement "information about you" and a file attachment which I am assuming is the information. I have not opened it, is this something IOSH is involved in? Any help would be appreciated Cheers Joe

Posted By Robert Paterson Hi Joe There a few virus going about and one of them is through an email with the subject - RE: Hello. On no account open it. DELETE IT RIGHT AWAY. It hass been said that the My Doom virus has spread that way. I don't think IOSH would send informatin about you in an attachment - I may be wrong. but it would be best to telephone HQ to find out about this before openeing any attachments. Kind Regards Robert Paterson

Posted By anthony o'keefe RE your email, Ethne D'Arcy is a member of the iosh staff that I have dealt with in the past. Regards Tony O'Keefe

Posted By Sean Fraser There are a number of websites that cover virus warnings, virus hoaxes (where there is no virus but they implore you to email all your friends and so do the job of clogging up the 'Net for them [saves writing the code - lazy hackers!!]) and urban legends. This particular e-mail has been a pain for me for several weeks now - I'm still getting one a day, after having received a record five one day last week. Always treat emails from unlnown sources as suspicious - especially if there are no contact details included in the text itself. E-mails from known sources that only have a short message and attachment are suspicious - it they came from a legitimate source, they would have been signed off. If you have an IT department then send it to them as a forward and alert them that you are concerned by adding a clear subject line such as "ALERT - is this a virus?" (even if this means replacing the original subject line). They will soon let you know. If you have no IT department, check a virus alert website (see below) and check the current news for descriptions and features - if it fits, bin it. If in doubt, bin it anyway. As has been said, they'll resend if it was a real email - and you can then let them know that their poor subject line choice, lack of contact details and terse message meant it was dumped rather than actioned and hopefully it will teach them to do better next time! I would encourage everyone who uses a copmuter to have at least two of these sites in their "Favourites" so they can check up on suspect information and scams and more importantly, cross-refer. Suggested sites would be: McAfee - http://vil.mcafee.com/hoax.asp Don't Spread That Hoax! - http://www.nonprofit.net/hoax/ F-secure - http://www.f-secure.com/news/hoax.htm and for Urban Legends, try Snopes - http://www.snopes.com/ While we are on the subject, have a look at this one: http://www.snopes.com/autos/hazards/gasvapor.asp Sound familiar? Since there is no scientific evidence to back up the intial claim, I still have trouble convincing people that there is no danger of mobile phones causing an explosion at a petrol station - this belief has now become so ingrained that people accept it automatically as being true and refuse to have it even challenged. I suppose most people are applying a precautionary principle which in a way is a safe attitude to have. Just goes to show though that if you repeat the lie often enough, you will eventually believe it yourself!

Posted By Martin R. Bessant This is definitely a virus attack. It is not coming from IOSH directly but is being sent externally from the address book of someone who has contacted IOSH in the past and has a virus on their computer system.. I have had several attacks by the W32.Netsky.B virus recently which my firewall and antivirus software has detected and deleted. I can strongly recommend using a good firewall/antivirus software to protect your computer and to stop any inadvertant distribution via your own address book. Martin Bessant, Lead Moderator - IOSH Web Pages.

Posted By Ken Taylor I open all e-mails in Mailwasher Pro these days where they can be read, deleted or bounced back as required. Those that remain and need to arrive in my inbox are then downloaded where the anti-virus software also awaits. You cannot be too careful these days. Something else to watch for is that virus e-mails can be sent with your suffix address but with other prefixes - so you dont receive them on your computer but they stack up in your mailserver inbox clogging the thing up. To defeat this I visit Mail2Web periodically and delete those not specifically addressed to me.

Posted By John Johnston Just to add another name to the list of "dodgy" emails, I received one this morning from....... david.bloodworth@IOSH.co.uk Title - "hello". My reply to this..........GOODBYE, chucked straight into the bucket!

Posted By Jane Blunt It is probable that IOSH does not have the virus, as they say. The virus probably resides in the machine of a third party who happens to have the IOSH address in their machine. I frequently receive viruses from people I have never heard of in places I have never heard of. Just bin it and forget it. Jane

Posted By Jim Mc Nally Guys This is a virus and you should delete it immediately. Our company has gone through this, we are getting all sorts of emails with this type of message on it, my understanding is that some come with an attached file which when you open rteleases the virus. I hope this isn't happening in your case but it sounds very similar