We're having an absolute laugh at work today watching the general community take down the e-mail system through its own stupidity. The story: At 12:19 pm someone got a virus that sent a link in an e-mail. It's very easy to spot. The subject is "Here you have," and in the body of the e-mail is a vague sentence about a document that you requested, along with a link that is made to look as though it connects to a .pdf file on a server somewhere. Of course, clicking the link causes the virus to self-propogate and send itself out in the same manner. The original e-mail was sent to an agency-wide distribution list. I can understand that among tens of thousands of people, it's likely that a few will fall for the scam and click the link, but it is now 2:00 and I have the following in my inbox: 13 e-mails featuring the original virus (including the original). This suggests that only 12 people actually clicked the link. Again, not bad for a government agency that employs tens of thousands of people across the US and in a number of foreign countries. 35 e-mails in which someone has clicked "Reply All" to inform the sender that the original e-mail mis-addressed, or someone requesting to be taken off the list, or someone suggesting - 1.5 hours later - that "it might be spam." I'm starting to think that the "Reply All" button should be deactivated by default. On the other hand, it's provided many laughs this afternoon. EDIT: I just talked to my wife, who works in one of the IT groups. Apparently I was way off in my assumption. Over 600 people at our location clicked on the link, and the program installs 13 pieces of malware. I'm so very glad I don't work in IT.
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This is why I'm studying to be an engineer. I am still a technically a technician (see what I did there?) but I refuse to deal with this kind of crap my whole life.
What he said^ I'd love to just design and implement network infrastructure. But for now, I'm the IT support technician for the local college. But I can't really complain, pays well for the area and is WAY better then Walmart. That's pretty funny, has to be a nightmare for the IT dept. though.
A while ago we replaced the lock system at work. Because we got new key cards, we also had to choose a new PIN. The guy in charge for the system sent out an email to everybody asking them to replay with their PIN of choice. One guy accidentally pressed reply to all... Needless to say he had to choose a different PIN.
I see the end result of that on about a monthly basis. I'd be infuriated if it wasn't chargeable time.
Oh dear. I... I just... wat is this i dont even SIX. HUNDRED. PEOPLE. CLICKED. ON. THE. LINK. I just... wow. A little staff re-education is needed, methinks.
I'd be more afraid by the quality of work people are putting out if 600 clicked on it, not just needing education. 600 people have such a small grasp on what their actual work load is that they blindly assume it's something they've forgotten and above that didn't even check who it was from and notice it was sent to thousands of people? Hell, I ought to try emailing all of my projects to my co-workers saying "Here's the document you requested!" and see how many complete my work.
It's not quite as bad as "ur crush will kiss u 2morro" chain emails. I have to disown friends who actually forward those things; the stupid is just too much to bear.
