Forums General Discussion Important...

Hello everyone, I know this a mIRC forum but I saw fit to try and warn as many users as possible. On MSN messenger over the last couple days there have numerous viruses going around. Mainly cute.pif, cute.pif is a Windows Messenger API which sends the link to everyone in your contact list.

And when someone signs in, they will get sent the message, no one is forgotten.

That was last night, tonight there have been files named "Crazy frog gets killed by train!.pif" and loads more! When you accept the files, they generate more PIF files into C:\Windows\Prefetch and I've been told that generate DLL files too, so that they can bypass the adware etc. It's infected 3 million terminals world wide.

More information can be found here I hope no one has been unlucky enough to get infected and I hope this helps a few people out.

I'm sorry for posting these issues on here, I just didn't want to see anyone infected.

Good luck!

Thanks Slade,... all people using the Internet should be aware of the dangers of accepting files from others. This danger is not limited to MSN, IRC, or e-mail; all methods to distribute files over Internet are used to spread malicious files!

Although most files are safe, there are always a few that may be infected with a virus, or may be malicious programs that try to damage your computer. Since it's impossible to know in advance whether a file that is being sent to you might cause a problem, following a few common sense rules can help:

• Only accept files from people that you know and trust. You should never accept files from people you don't know, and never accept files without knowing what their purpose is, even from someone you know.
• Files ending in .BAT, .COM, .PIF, .EXE, .DLL, .VBS, etc. have the most potential to cause problems. You should not accept such files from people you don't know, or download them from web/ftp sites which don't appear trustworthy.
• Never trust handy tools, screensavers, or funny things people offer you, even if you trust these people; you can not see if a funny bouncing easter rabbit in the background, or after 3 days, eats up your entire harddisk.
• Certain types of Document files like .DOC can contain macros which are run by your Word Processor when you open the document to view it, so these are also potentially harmful. You should make sure that you have macro-warnings turned on in your Word Processer. It is also safer to view any documents that you receive in a plain-text editor first if possible.

Note that mIRC by default does not accept file transfers of certain (dangerous) file types, and several IRC networks block file transfers entirely. Also mIRC clearly warns you with a message before you can accept a file transfer, ....problem with all these warnings is that people don't listen until it hits them, hard.

Tjerk.

Yeah that's very true.
I think that other IM- clients, MSN, AIM, Yahoo, ICQ should all have a default option for secure sharing. Maybe it can be brought up somewhere.

I've got everyone trying to send me that file on MN, I think the virus somehow knows who has been infected and what not because my brother could only speak to me and couldn't speak with anyone who hadn't been infected. That was the case with a few others too. I think my mate is going to inform ATT.net as thats where the file was being hosted.

The latest versions of Yahoo Messenger & AIM (America Online Instant Messenger) both have options for secure sharing.