Mydoom Virus

[llama_thumper]

since a few days i've been receiving either email messages sent to me with viruses (which norton deletes), as well as "bounces", email with viruses which was apparently sent by me and then bounced back with a notification that the message contained a virus.

one of these specified that the virus was mydoom.

 

the great majority of the emails received by me as well as those 'bounced' back to me are from email addresses i dont know at all, however one or two are from people who are in my address book.

 

i've scanned my PC several times with the newest antivirus definitions, have also done this online on the symantec website, and also did a online security check since i read that mydoom opens up some specific ports.

 

i've also run the mydoom removal tool from the norton website, which said it didn't find anything.

 

so, my question is - what's happening?

most disturbingly the emails that i receive or are bounced back to me ('bounced' in the sense that they appear to be - i never sent them) are all toward my main email address, which i've never given out on the web.

 

any help anyone?

thanks,

piotr

[TCH-Rick]

Someone with your address in their Addressbook is infected. The virus is pulling your address out and using it in the From or Reply-To filed when it emails. As a result you are getting bounce messages for messages you did not send. This is similar to what the SoBig worm did as well. That's one reason these worms are so hard on the mail servers, they are sending bounces all over the internet.