Strange Email

[lucille]

My friend Rayner seems to have a virus. I received - allegedly - an email from her, but my virus protector warned me not to open it. I rang her and she said she didn't send it. How does she rid her computer of this?

[paularoid]

My friend Rayner seems to have a virus. I received - allegedly - an email from her, but my virus protector warned me not to open it. I rang her and she said she didn't send it. How does she rid her computer of this?

As you say "allegedly". Just because you received an email that's reported to be from her doesn't necessarily mean that it did indeed come from her and she's not necessarily infected. That doesn't necessarily mean that either one of you is infected. Her address or possibly even yours may have been (probably was) stolen by some spambot somewhere and then inserted into the message and mailed automatically.

I'm not saying that she -isn't- infected but so far from what you've said there's not really anything that really says that she -is- infected. If she doesn't have a good anti-virus program then she needs to get one - NOW! And she needs to make sure the definitions are UP TO DATE!

You or she can't rid yourselves of a virus that isn't there, and it sounds to me like that may be the case - but don't take my word on that. Scan with a good anti-virus program that's up to date.

For the best freebie (in my opinion) go for Avira AntiVir available here (http://www.free-av.com/):
http://www.free-av.com/

For the best paid-for (in my opinion) AV program go for NOD32 available here (http://www.nod32.com/home/home.htm):
http://www.nod32.com/home/home.htm

[Amy in Vermont]

The other thing I would recommend... just in case... is that she change her e-mail password.

This may or may not help, but it cannot hurt.

My dad's Yahoo account got compromised a few months before he died. He had not been on his computer in months. Spam was being sent to everyone in his address book, allegedly from him. By checking the message headers, I could see that it was coming from eastern Europe.

When he died, I closed his account. The spam continued for a month or so, the stopped.

[DaveM]

I just had an e-mail with a virus attached from an acquaintance who has never sent me an e-mail! My best guess is that there's a spambot somewhere that harvests MSN Messenger lists. Either MSN Mail or Avast! sent it straight to the junk folder.

[paularoid]

For the best freebie (in my opinion) go for Avira AntiVir available here (http://www.free-av.com/):
http://www.free-av.com/

For the best paid-for (in my opinion) AV program go for NOD32 available here (http://www.nod32.com/home/home.htm):
http://www.nod32.com/home/home.htm

WOOPS! I screwed up. Well I guess I didn't really screw up as much as I misstated things. Recently I changed my mind about the best freebie anti-virus program and switched my opinion about the best one from Avira AntiVir to Microsoft Security Essentials. I've been so skeptical about all things Microsoft for so long that I still haven't wrapped my head around the fact that they didn't screw up with this one.

Microsoft Security Essentials really -is- in my opinion superior for a freebie. It's available here (http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/):

http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/

As soon as my current AntiVir free subscription runs out in September I'll switch over to MSE.