Returned Mail Virus

So while I was writing my last post I got a couple of Returned Mail emails in my inbox. Normally I don't think too much about them because I have several regular commenters that leave invalid email addresses in the comments. But I realized that this came not to my blog email, but rather to one of my personal emails.

After looking through the text (and not opening the attachment), I started to wonder if perhaps, this was some kind of a virus. I did a full system virus scan on my computer (nothing found, as I expected). Symantec didn't have anything about it on their site, so I googled it.

And I came up with this page.

All well and interesting, basically saying "Yes there is a virus. Don't open the attachment." Didn't tell me what the virus would do to me if I opened it, but by this point I was already losing interest in the whole thing.

And then I got to the bottom of the page. And the discussion about how many of the viruses can be traced to an email in China. And the speculation that this "could represent an asymmetric, low intensity east-west infrastructure attack which blends spam, spoofs and virus intended to cause havoc."

I don't think that that is the complete story, otherwise China would be booming from selling us porn and "male enhancement pills," but it certainly does put things in a different light and reminds me of just how fragile the internet can be.