Quick Spam/Virus question...

[MIDIman]

Curious - I have Kaspersky for my anti-virus, and it likes to get angry at the mail I download in Eudora. Unfortunately, I've had scenarios where mail doesn't reach me, because it will lock up mbx mailboxes if a virus is downloaded in a message.

The only alternative I've found to this is to Unload virus scanner, download my mail, remove mail that's clearly junk, then scan Eudora's folder when done.


So my question is - do any viruses exist that would activate simply by downloading a message, then removing it and its attachment? Again, using Eudora 6 (built-in "Junk" box) and the MS viewer is not on. I'm generally getting iframe.download and the Sky virus, and as far as I can tell, doing the above should not activate them, yes?

 

[SagaLore]

Originally posted by: MIDIman
Curious - I have Kaspersky for my anti-virus, and it likes to get angry at the mail I download in Eudora. Unfortunately, I've had scenarios where mail doesn't reach me, because it will lock up mbx mailboxes if a virus is downloaded in a message. The only alternative I've found to this is to Unload virus scanner, download my mail, remove mail that's clearly junk, then scan Eudora's folder when done. So my question is - do any viruses exist that would activate simply by downloading a message, then removing it and its attachment? Again, using Eudora 6 (built-in "Junk" box) and the MS viewer is not on. I'm generally getting iframe.download and the Sky virus, and as far as I can tell, doing the above should not activate them, yes?

I don't quite understand what you're asking - but - there are viruses that will activate themselves by simply viewing the message. It's a bug in IE and Outlook Express.

Try using AVG instead and enable the Outlook/Outlook Express plugin. And upgrade your IE/OE to the newest version if not already...

 

[MIDIman]

Originally posted by: SagaLore
I don't quite understand what you're asking - but - there are viruses that will activate themselves by simply viewing the message.  It's a bug in IE and Outlook Express.

I'm using Eudora - but the MS (i.e. like Outlook) E-mail Viewer is disabled. Sounds like I'm safe? And again, I'm not even opening the mail, but just transferring it straight to the Trash.


The issue here is that my virus scanner is detecing infected mail while my mail is downloading, and sometimes I will lose mail because it will lock a mailbox. My solution is to disable my virus scanner before downloading e-mail - I then download the mail, delete suspects that are likely spam/viruses, and then turn my virus scanner back on when I'm done, before I start reading my mail. I'm just asking if its possible that I can be infected by using this method.

 

[SagaLore]

Originally posted by: MIDIman

Originally posted by: SagaLore I don't quite understand what you're asking - but - there are viruses that will activate themselves by simply viewing the message. It's a bug in IE and Outlook Express.

I'm using Eudora - but the MS (i.e. like Outlook) E-mail Viewer is disabled. Sounds like I'm safe? And again, I'm not even opening the mail, but just transferring it straight to the Trash. The issue here is that my virus scanner is detecing infected mail while my mail is downloading, and sometimes I will lose mail because it will lock a mailbox. My solution is to disable my virus scanner before downloading e-mail - I then download the mail, delete suspects that are likely spam/viruses, and then turn my virus scanner back on when I'm done, before I start reading my mail. I'm just asking if its possible that I can be infected by using this method.

Yes it's possible. I'm not sure how Eudora treats active content.

Instead of disabling your antivirus, put in exceptions for Eudora's process and the directory where the email database is.

Kaspersky description- it looks like Kaspersky already has Eduora support. Is the email scanning feature turned on?

 

[MIDIman]

Originally posted by: SagaLore
<A class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="http://www.scandsecure.com/site.asp?page=kavpersonal" target=blank>Kaspersky description</A> - it looks like Kaspersky already has Eduora support.  Is the email scanning feature turned on?

Yup, the mail checker component should be on. Unfortunately, "the built in Mail Checker <that> efficiently deletes viruses from e-mail messages, and completely restores the original contents of your messages." definitely doesn't work efficiently. It has never been able to remove a single e-mail within a mailbox. I'll check around Kaspersky's website. Thanks!