Doing It By The Numbers

Here's something new, that is also old too, confused? No need to be, all will be made clear [hopefully?] before the end of this post.

Do any of you out there in blogland recognise the following screenshot of one of a number of e-mails I received yesterday and today?



Does it look familiar?

Well, for those of you that follow these things, the last time we saw e-mails like this [just consisting of numbers, both decimal and hex] it was attributed to the 'Bagle' [aka Beagle] e-mail worm. It was claimed, at that time, that the e-mails are a form of 'e-mail probe' to allow the authors to clean their 'victim' list of e-mail addresses that are no longer valid, or have now installed better anti-malware and anti-spam defences.

So, the question we should ask now, is this a 'warning' that a major e-mail worm attack is going to happen soon? Not forgetting the current 'Storm Worm fake e-cards e-mails' that are currently swamping e-mail inboxes across the world.

Also bear in mind that a number of the worst malware 'epidemics' have occurred during August. Anyone remember 'Nimda', 'Blaster and Welchi', 'Sobig' or 'Zotob'?

You know what to do, make sure you defences are in place and up to date, and DON'T open any attachments or links in e-mails that you were not expecting, even from someone you know and trust. Remember, the malware authors, spammers and scammers almost always now 'spoof/forge' e-mail addresses, so they almost never come from who they claim to have been sent by.

Stay safe and alert!

By the way, don't you just love the name used in the e-mail screenshot?