Need help with possible virus

[aman74]

Hi all,

I keep getting Mail Delivery Subsystem messages saying returned email. Like you get when you send an email to an old email account or something.

Thing is, it's spam and not sent to anyone I know.

Also, on Yahoo messenger it will give a little pop up bubble saying so and so signed in or out, like it does for people on your buddy list. Problem is, you guessed it, they aren't on my list and never were.

I have AVG and run adaware and XP is patched.

Please help if you can.

Thanks!

 

[gsellis]

Getting those messages does not mean you are infected. If a spammer is spoofing an address with your own, you will get the messages returned to you. If you get a lot of them, it usually means that somewhere in the past, you posted your email address in plain text as part of a signature or in a system that was easily subverted. Newsgroups are a prime candidate for that. That is part of the reason AT adds REMOVE (I think it is REMOVE in AT - I might be thinking of one of my other hangouts) into your email address when listed here.

If you do use newsgroups, update your "email" address in them to include obvious non-real entries. I add "9" before and after server "@9msmail.com9". Unfortunately, it will take awhile before you will notice a dropoff in traffic. Also, those spams will be included in a blacklist soon, so they will disappear as the email systems just reject and discard them instead of sending you the reply.

 

[aman74]

Thanks much for the thorough reply. I hope that is the case, I just never noticed them before.

I never post my email address in newsgroups, but do have them in my profile.

So, if someone tries to email me from a profile and I add the nines like you suggest, wouldn't most people not realize that the email address isn't correct or just click on the address to send an email and I would never get it?

Sorry, I guess I don't follow that part exactly.