A device using your internet connection may be infected with malware

[Kenwj]

 Have run antivirus protection since receiving it and nothing was reported. Is this a genuine message from Virgin

[jem101]

@gobstopper they can’t tell you what the possible malware is because they don’t necessarily know! I did once know who the ‘third party’ is, but the name escapes me now.

All they are doing is looking at traffic exiting your public IP address and if something looks a little bit out of the ordinary (what you mean that people may use their internet connection for other thing than looking at cat videos on Facebook), it gets flagged up and a boilerplate feature-light email gets generated.

Just ignore it - nothing will happen.

[gobstopper]

@jem101 - thank you for your response. I am returning to this conversation as I have today received letter #2 from VM on this same subject.

I could ignore it, as you say, and if I were a knowing perpetrator of such behaviour I would definitely do so.

However I am genuinely concerned by these notifications and while I now work in a far more mundane IT role as I enter my more senior years, for 17 years I was right on the front line of the Internet Security industry and find the lack of concrete detail just a little bit hard to understand. If someone or something is able to identify traffic as being malicious and inform VM (even if the system in question is using behavioural anaylsis, rather than outright detection) then it should also identify the kind of malware it might be - that was possible, even for small business security scanners, 7 years ago when I left that area of the industry. I can only imagine the types of advances that have been made since this time.

I agree that no-one can identify which of my devices could be responsible, but having a mix of Windows PCs, half a dozen Raspberry Pis (all running Linux) a couple of tablets and a mobile phone (all having been scanned and passed clean), if this 3rd party who is informing VM of this can identify the type of malware they are claiming to see then it might then point me towards the type of device that may be responsible. All this, of course, being despite the fact that for the past 4 weeks I have been back in an office full time, so the equipment in my house has barely been turned on for much of this time.

But, if something is genuinely broadcasting something malicious, unknown to me, then I will do all I can to fix it.

[Kenwj]

I have received the notification around 3 times now and this was being referred to someone in the team but heard no more.

[用心棒]

The notices Virgin Media receive are from trusted third-parties that do (AFAIK) contain detail that they are failing to pass on to the customer now; previously the forum team seem to have been in a position where they could pass on some of this missing detail but now that no longer seems to be the case.

Given this lack of information and uncertainty of whether the advice What is a malware alert? is proportionate and/or appropriate it seems sensible to seek the missing information via a Data Subject Access Request under the GDPR

[AranN]

The 3rd party involved is a DNSBL. DNS black list 

An anti spam database maintained by different DNS companies. I've also had 3-4 letters. Averaging about 1 a month and each time a different piece of malware is named. 

This has also led to some internet hosts blocking my IP so I get a "403 forbidden" on any websites using those hosts.

I have yet to find a way to remove myself from the DNSBL. Pretty IT savvy like yourself. Only have 2 windows machines running and they're both virus free.

[iancr]

Like others here I am also getting emails from Virginmedia - like others to I have scanned the devices and all have returned 0 problems.

It says one or more of my mailboxes may be affected but we are not seeing anything suspicious etc.

Can anyone give me any further advice etc

Thanks

[Kenwj]

Well here we go, another notification came but Virgin had cut off my email so I didn't read it. Phone them and the automatic answer they would resent something, nothing happened, then when I got through I was told I had me emails cut off due to suspicious activity!  So password changed yet again, i did express my concerns over this situation yet again, now working  but for how long???  Perhaps no one cares about customer relations at Virgin? Will start ot find an alternative porvider if this happens again. Nothing from  by various ant virus / malware checks

[iancr]

Hi, did manage to speak to a sympathetic member of VM Helpdesk this afternoon. She agreed with me that there appeared to be nothing suspicious happening on our email - the primary one is web based as I took it off my devices last time this happened. she was going to notify there security team so that they could do some further investigations and apparently they will get back to me.

She is not sure why this is happening but like others have said appears to be based on reports from 3rd party sources.

[Kenwj]

I was told that it would be reported back to a member of the team to investigate and I heard nothing except lost email!!

[Ashleigh_C]

Hi there @Kenwj

Thank you so much for your updates and I am so sorry to hear you are still receiving these emails. 

I have reached out to the agent who contacted the teams for us and they will updates as soon as they can. 

Thank you.