So CNN were discussing Sobig this morning. Apparantly their regular geek chose this week to go on vacation, so they had a stand in 'expert' talking with the anchor. Although at first she appeared to know what she was talking about, I soon suspected that she was little more than a pretty face with a good ability to act a role.

This was confirmed by her answer to the anchor's last question, "How do you avoid being hit?" ;
"Only open email with "From:" addresses that you know. If you didn't open email from strangers then Sobig wouldn't have affected you." (paraphrased).

Aaargh. I can accept that comments such as these may come from small local outfits with few resources, but from CNN? No wonder half the population remains clueless about email virii.

Let's review;
1) Most virii send copies of themselves to contacts in your address book. Many of whom are likely to be friends and family who know you.
2) In Sobig's case, it apparantly used one of the contacts email addresses to spoof the 'From' header. Although that means that many copies of the virii would appear to come from strangers, some copies will also appear to come from mutual friends, so her statement is still wrong.