I think I was sent a virus or trojan... hmm... what should I do?

[AnitaPeterson]

Hi,

Someone I don't know sent me an e-mail from a hotmail account, with an .exe attachment and "Open without fear" in the subject line. I'm not going to open that thing, but I wonder if there's a way to fight back in case my worst fears would be confirmed. If it's a virus, I guess I could complain to hotmail and have that account suspended (not that it'll do a fat lot of good, mind, you, but at least it's better than nothing!)

Now, I need to know for sure that this is an infected file. On my machine, I have Norton Antivirus, Innoculate IT Personal Edition and the AVG antivirus. Would these detect any worm, trojan and other bug out there? are their updates so comprehensive?

Another thing would be an on-line scanner, but again, I don't know if those catch everything.

What do you suggest? What would you do with a "live bug" ?

 

[nealh]

I would under no cirmcumstance open it..though I suspect you figured that out..can you run the AV programs on the attachment..yahoo.com will scan attachments with Norton AV if you ask it too..can hotmail do this..you could open a yahoo.com mail account and try to scan the attachment after mailing this to the yahoo.com account....

Also you send it to Symantec and explain your concern and maybe they can scan it for you...

Hope this helps..not sure if it will though

 

[BreakApart]

Delete it.

What's the point of even messing with the file?
I can guarantee it won't make you rich or famous so why mess with it?

 

[nealh]

I have to agree with Break\Apart..safest thing to do is delete it

 

[AnitaPeterson]

you guys are right.