Weird E-Mail Problem

[SARGE]

All day Thursday DL got a bunch of returned mail, saying the usual "host unknown", etc. Thing is, she never sent the mail to these folks. They're all different - shows a "from" address and a "to" address, none of which are anyone she knows. Updated virus scan, etc., shows all clean. We'll see what Friday brings...

[glc]

It's Klez - she doesn't have it but people that have her in their address books do.

[SARGE]

OK, ran E-Trust again (formerly InoculateIt) and it found, in her inbox, the HTML.MimeExploit virus, but won't do anything with it, although I have "clean" option checked. Don't know why it missed it first time. Also, she knows none of these folks so why would she be in their address book?

[glc]

Friends of friends - it snowballs. Remember that OE has the ability to add any person you reply to to your addy book automatically.

Time to consider a different AV that has a real time email scanner.

[SARGE]

She doesn't use OE or ever open Explorer; uses Netscape. We've had InoculateIt and when it changed to e-trust we bought it. Evidently it stinks. I ran House Call and it said we had Klez. Hell, e-trust can't even ID it correctly, nor offer a way to clean it. So, now that we've been burned, what "real time" email protection do you recommend? Despite all the updates, e-trust can't stop a virus that's been around for months.

[HAL9000]

I use Norton, and Outlook and have never been burned by an e-mail virus. PC-Cillian is good too.

[audiyoda]

Norton 2002 -- was a Kaspersky (AVP) fan until their yearly fee got out of hand. Since install (two months ago) I've caught about 1 dozen e-mail virus before they even hit my inbox.

-Craig

[SARGE]

Scanning file(s)...
c:\program files\netscape\Users\*******.net\Mail\Inbox - infected with HTML.MimeExploit virus.

House Call called the above Klez. Perhaps if I had ZA enabled on her pc it would have caught it - it caught the Sircam and nailed it.

I've used Norton before and seems so bloated and buggy at times. I'll never use McAfee again, but the above has me ticked to no end. Her Inbox keeps piling up with "undeliverable" mail and she wants me to fix it.

[glc]

I use Norton 2002 and swear by it, but AVG has a very good real time email scanner and it's free. However, it won't clean Klez, just ID it, but if it's in an incoming e-mail, it tosses it in the vault (quarantine). InoculateIT/E-Trust literally gets eaten by Klez, it disables its real time protection. It doesn't MATTER whether she uses OE or not - it's everyone ELSE who does that's spreading this crap.

If you have Klez, go to the Symantec security response site and download the removal tool. It works REAL well, keep running it till it comes up clean.

[dtex]

Since you mentioned the Grisoft AVG-I recently downloaded & installed the avg6.0 (the free version) to try out, since it was time to renew my subscription for the up dates for McAfee. (yes I'm a cheap old coot). It works fine on my pc as for as the resident sheild goes, but does not scan my email as far as I know. It also is supposed to enter a note on all outgoing mail saying "AVG verifies this mail is virus free" or something to that effect. It doesn't. There is a note on their page saying "it may not work visually on all mail clients, but rest assured it is working. " I'm using earthlink's email program instead of Outlook exp. There is an option to use the OE 5 plugin, but I didn't enable it since I don't use OE. Was wondering if it might help if I enabled it. There is no tech support for the free version BTW.
Don

[glc]

Nothing real-time scans web-based e-mail or AOL mail. Get Pegasus or Eudora if you want any semblance of e-mail security.

[SARGE]

Originally posted by glc I If you have Klez, go to the Symantec security response site and download the removal tool. It works REAL well, keep running it till it comes up clean.

I'm assuming I don't have to already be a Norton (Symantec) user to do that?

[glc]

No, it's a free public download for anyone who wants it.