WARNING ?Bogus Microsoft Corp. or Tech Bulletin?

[michele]

I have received or the last week about 8 Bulletins that
present as Microsoft material. They come with an
security attachment. I checked out the properties and
the sender is not microsoft. Properties: FROM: "MS
Program Security Center" >
TO: "Commercial Client" >
SUBJECT: Last Critical Patch. When I opened the attached
file it did not have an authenicode signature.

Is this a new invasion of some sort or is this a legal
patch? Anyone aware of this one?/

Thanks for your response, Michele

[Bruce Chambers]

Greetings --

What you received is either a very common malicious hoax or the
output of a computer infected by one of several wide-spread, mass
emailing worms. The most widely-known are:

W32.Swen.A_mm


W32.Dumaru_mm


W32.Gibe_mm


Microsoft never has, does not currently, and never will email
unsolicited security patches. At the most, if, and only if, you
subscribe to their security notification newsletter, they will send
you an email informing you that a new patch is available for
downloading.

Microsoft Policies on Software Distribution
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/?url=/technet/security/policy/swdist.asp

Information on Bogus Microsoft Security Bulletin Emails
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?url=/technet/security/news/patch_hoax.asp

Any and all legitimate patches and updates are readily available
at http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/. (Notice that this is the true
URL, rather than the bogus one that may have been contained in the
email you received.) Any messages that point to any other source(s) or
claim to have the patch attached are bogus.

You're receiving these emails because your email address is in
the address book of someone infected with a worm, and/or because you
posted your real email address somewhere on-line, either in a forum
accessible to the public and spambots, such as Usenet, or on an
untrustworthy web site that subsequently sold your address as part of
a mailing list. One thing you can do is notify _everyone_ with whom
you've ever corresponded via email that one or more of them may be
infected with a mass emailing worm, and should take the appropriate
steps.

There's probably no way of blocking all of the bogus messages, but
you can greatly reduce the number you get by creating a rule, based
upon the most commonly used subject lines, to delete the emails from
the server without ever downloading them.

Bruce Chambers

--
Help us help you:
http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on
having both at once. -- RAH


"michele" > wrote in message
...
> I have received or the last week about 8 Bulletins that
> present as Microsoft material. They come with an
> security attachment. I checked out the properties and
> the sender is not microsoft. Properties: FROM: "MS
> Program Security Center" >
> TO: "Commercial Client" >
> SUBJECT: Last Critical Patch. When I opened the attached
> file it did not have an authenicode signature.
>
> Is this a new invasion of some sort or is this a legal
> patch? Anyone aware of this one?/
>
> Thanks for your response, Michele