DANGER: Don't release Held Mail from Vanquish!

[--VQ--]

If you have looked through your HELD MAIL recently, you may have seen official looking messages with these subjects:

• Re: Important Notification
  
• Re: *DETECTED* Online User Violation
  
• HZR
  
• Email Account Suspension
  
• Last Warning

A virulent worm, Worm.Mytob.CA, is spreading across the internet. It poses as "admin", "support" or "info" at popular service companies and targets common user names such as Mike, Dave, or Peter.

The worm is distributed through "Zombies". That is, it takes over the PCs of innocent users when they are idle. It doesn't cause harm to these enslaved carriers, so the owner may not realize for many weeks that he is passing along the more dangerous payload in the fraudulent support message.

Fortunately, Vanquish prevents the threat from reaching your computer in two ways:

1. It quarantines the message in your Held Mail. Although the message claims to be from Vanquish (or vqME), it is not bonded.

This is a good time to check your Allow and Domain-Allow list. Remove any entries from vanquish.com, vqme.com and domains that you know are using vqME or a mail provider that offers Vanquish to it's customers. They don't need to be on your list of Allowed domains, becuase mail from them contains a bond no matter where it is sent from. This digital signature will get it right to your IN box.

2. Even if you release the message, the content is destroyed and you are informed of the threat in a report like this one

IMPORTANT: In the Held Mail, you can view the text portion of messages by clicking on the subject. But don't click on links or open attachments in this limited Preview mode, unless you are certain of the sender and you trust him or her. When in doubt, release the message to your IN box so that it is scanned by Vanquish for threats. This ensures that it will be tested for both viruses and the most common phishing schemes.

The Mytob worm is an old trick wrapped in a new and insidious manner. Surf wisely!