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e-mail security

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by tmd201v

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A friend recently sent me an e-mail in which she said may be a way to detect if you have a virvus. Some virvus get into your contact list and then send e-mails to all your contacts which they then infect. You add aaaa@aaaa@aaa to your contact list and if you receive a bad address notification you know your computer is infected. Will this work??

Tom Donegan

3 replies

by seanferd

Then again, for some malware, if that first address fails, it will make no further attempts. Scan your system occasionally, with a variety of different malware scanners. Many are free.

Also note that malware is under continuous development. Smart malware may be able to recognize fake addresses in the near future, if it does not already.

by scott_heath

You would have to be a pretty dumb hacker to do that. Normally viruses that send emails don't "use" your Outlook\Outlook Express. It just access the address book to get valid addresses. It would also be rare to use your address as the return address, but not impossible. It won't hurt you to do it, but I wouldn't count on it helping protect you.

Regards,
Scott

http://scottisageek.spaces.live.com

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