About Viri/Hackers

[Eaglefeather]

Recently I have been receiving strange emails. The email addys look perfectly harmless and are from well know providers such as yahoo.com, aol.com,hotmail.com etc. The first part of the addy is always a name, such as Ming, Brian, etc. When I open the email, there is nothing inside. It is empty. Is this a new type of viri or could it be hackers trying to access the machine? It has only been happening for a couple of weeks and my PC has started to slow down whenever I go online. Is someone stealing my bandwidth and bypassing ZoneAlarm and/or my Panda antivirus?

Of course it could all be coincidence and just be my old PackardHell acting up again. Would like to hear you comments. It has been a while since I posted folks so please don't forget I am just an old guy and need to be taken by the hand when it comes to the workings of these machines.

[doctorgonzo]

What e-mail program are you using?

[morriswindgate]

Your getting spam that is using a spoofed address. But the first rule of thumb is do not open anything from anybody that you do not know, otherwise you are asking for trouble.

[Eaglefeather]

I use yahoo and excite mail.

I never open anything that has not been through my antivirus and never open attachements unless I know the person from whom they were sent.

[Carl Price]

Eaglefeather, I don't open attachments even from people I know, because they might have a virus and not know it, or their machine could have sent the file and they not know about it. It is just too dangerous to open <B>any</B> attachment.

[oryx]

Most of these E-Mail viruses use personal address books to select their next victims. That's why even attachments from people you know are suspect.

[Eaglefeather]

Thanks for all the replys.

Guess I just have to continue being vigilant. Had the machine scince 96 and only one virus, the "happy 99", managed to squeek in. Had a very poor antivirus program at the time. Switched to Panda and not had a single problem since.

Cheers
Eaglefeather

[morriswindgate]

Another few things to keep outta trouble

Turn off Auto Complete in IE by going to Tools>Internet Options>Content>Auto Complete and then uncheck all the boxes.
Keep you internet History set at zero days to keep.
Empty your temporary internet files immediately after shopping online.
Download/Install SwatIt Trojan Scanner (Free) at CNET.com and run it every once in a while.

[Eaglefeather]

Thanks again Morris,

I already do or have done all of your suggestions, learned that quite some time ago.

However did not know about the Trojan Scanner, will zip over to CNET and have a look.

Cheers
Eaglefeather