Hi,
Hopefully, not too much damage has been done, and thanks to the people who
sent information about how to deal with it. There's not much I can do about
what happened and apologies to people who caught a cold (or worse). The
originator of the message is still subscribed, but is unable to post to the
list. I'm pretty sure that the posting was not malicious.
I've taken some actions to try and prevent the same thing happening again.
These are:
1. A welcome message that tells new members not to post attachments to the
list. Currrent members should be aware that it is list policy NOT to post
attachments.
2. In the future, new members have to be OK'd by the listowner -- this will
help prevent someone joining the list sending a malicious posting and
leaving before they can be traced -- I should say, however, that this was
not the problem in this this case.
Moderating the list will further reduce the chance of someone posting a
virus, but this reduces free discussion and I'm reluctant to this. I've had
a good look at the online documentation to see if it is possible to "return
to sender" messages with attachments, but I can't find the info --
Hopefully, the people at JISC mail will be able to advise. Ultimately,
however, the only way of not exposing yourself to these risks is not be a
member of any e-mail lists and be an "electronic Howard Hughes". I would
like to remind people that in five years this is the first time that this
has happened, and in this time the list has only been spammed only once. I
hope people don't over-react and leave the list.
The above measures should give list members reasonable protection without
being too draconian. But remember that if you get a posting from
geo-mineralisation with an attachment -- DELETE IT. Don't be tempted to
read it and don't forget to empty your wastebasket
Hopefully we can call a close to this, unless anyone has a burning issue
thay want to discuss.
Thanks for your patience and keeping calm
Jon Naden
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