Email received--malicious intent?

[Narnie]

Hi, I received this email in my AOL mailbox today. Don't know who it's from, or what it's purpose is. I did see it contained my screen password, which I promptly changed after reading the email. Could someone please tell me what this email is all about--I am not smart when it comes to malicious intent, but I think it must be involved somewhat in this email. What harm can opening that email cause? I am ok, since I changed my password? Do I need to change the password on all my AOL screen names? Also, I 've heard about firewalls, but don't know much about them, do I need to install something like this? Could anyone recommend a free one? I don't want to open the email again to post it here, but it says something like this:



To:
Subject: Your Requested Information
From: AOL Instant Messenger <[email protected]>


This is an automatically-generated response from the AOL Instant
Messenger(SM)
service. The information you requested is "xxxxx".

Did you know that you can use your AIM(SM) service screen name to sign onto other great AOL Web Products?

Thank you, I apreciate the assistance!

 

[steamwiz]

HI Narnie

Looks innocent enough to me - did you forget your password or something and ask them to send it to you ?

If you are worried about a possible virus - do an on-line scan Here :-

http://www.pandasoftware.com/activescan/

or here :-

http://housecall.trendmicro.com/

You do need a firewall - Zonealarm is popular and easy to use

http://www.free-firewall.org/

steam

 

[Narnie]

Hi, thanks for your reply. I did not request my password, I don't use AOL instant messenger, and most importantly, this email is not from AOL. I should have mentioned that point. Since AOL has had so many problems with malicious intent, all mail originating from AOL has a blue symbol. I think this email is somehow designed to get my password for my AOL screen name, but I know so little about this, that I am asking those who know more. When I did a Google search to get more info on this message, the only posting I found for this was on a site called The Shmoo Group? which had this message posted in a long list of what looked like scam emails, but I couldn't find any other descriptive info on the site other than the list. The list was dated a few years ago. Thank you.

 

[Steppinstone]

I went to symantec's site and searched and there are quite a few different aol trojan and such. You really should run a virus scan and pehaps even one that does a better job at detecting trojans.
A good one to try- Moosoft.com it is a free 30 day trial.

Good luck!