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I've had two of these this morning alone to my Hotmail account.
The sender shows "Mail Delivery system" (or similar) and claims to be a returned message you sent but that the system couldn't deliver.
And it includes a 101k attachment, with the file extension ".pif"
If you receive a similar message then under no circumstances should you open the attachment - it is almost certainly a virus.
It seems that virus distribution hit a new low - a warning for all of you.
This is probably the SoBig, Natchi or Blaster worm that keeps redefining itself and coming back. I work on a service desk and we've had major problems with it despite having all the latest .dat files and patches.
The messages headings we have had so far are:
(all of these MAY be preceeded with RE: )
Application
Movie
Movies
Submitted
ScRe:ensaver
Documents
Re: Application ref 003644
Re: Document
Your application
Application.pif
Applications.pif
movie.pif
Screensaver.scr
submited.pif
new document.pif
Re: document.pif
004448554.pif
Referer.pif
The payload isn't harmful in itself but it snaffles addresses from you Address Book and Internet cache to use.
Symantec have removal information here
*sigh* yes... my boss opened a .pif (it said some movie file) today (god knows why she did this) and I had to fix her computer... Also had to convice her the letter sent out by one of her 'friends' (he probably got a virus) saying to remove the java debugger program because it was a virus was a hoax... Virus' blow.
Long story short: Either dont' use M$ mail programs, or disable preview panes and dont' read mail that you don't know who it's from, especially with attachments.
I've been getting lots of pif virus attacks over the last few days through my marketing email distribution group at work. Fortunately, Norton for networks has caught them all and flagged them.
Incidentally, the virus replicates itself by mailing itself out to everyone on your contact list in a convincing email entitled "Thank You" or such. That's why you might be wondering why your friends or business relationships are mailing you viruses :-P
I saw on TechTV that apparently 1 in 17 e-mails sent recently was this worm. :(
I got 4 of these emails yesterday - with the attachments
details.pif
document_9446.pif
movie0045.pif
movie0045.pif
Fortunately - Norton picked em all up - but another thing is that all of these emails were from my best friends.
be warned.
Virus, virus, they are everywhere!
The matrix does own us.
Yes, it's the SoBig virus - pretty cool.
Reckon all these virus' have something to do with that hacking contest that was mentioned a few weeks/months ago?