virus

markw · Post by **markw** » Tue 04 May, 2004 12:31 pm

I seem to be getting a lot of virus sent to me over the last few weeks - alarmingly many come from other galleries or framing businesses. i know that my email address has been hijacked and used to spam - apparently its an everyday occurence and little can be done to stop it, one of the problems that seems to go hand in hand with others using your email id is that you end up recieving lots of messages with virus attached. thankfully my service provider filters out virus - and i run a virus checker automatically on all email - so have stayed clean. one of the methods used to gather email addresses is via members list - you will know if your being used when you get odd messages from people you have never heard of, or mailed - replying via your email address - anybody else experienced similar problems ?- or have a solution to keep my email address exclusive to me.

Dermot · Post by **Dermot** » Tue 04 May, 2004 3:39 pm

Mark

There has been much discussion on the US Grumble about this……and there is little from what I can gather you can do…..just keep deleting

…….I’m now running Outlook on Windows 2003 with Norton Anti-Virus most of the junk is now ending up in the Anti Spam folder…I just have a quick look in case it is to vigorous and sends a acceptable mail to Anti Spam

…..which I can then flag as an acceptable address

……then the whole lot junk goes to the recycle bin.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Tue 04 May, 2004 7:30 pm

I am using Win XP Home with Outlook Express aslo with Norton AV.. and am having the same problems..
However, have tried using SpamWeed. So far.. touching wood it is working brilliantly. Filters out all those spam into a BlackList, leaving only the WhiteList (which you can customize) with no problems

Post by **John** » Tue 04 May, 2004 9:11 pm

We use MailWasher which will optionally bounce messages on the blacklist directly from the server - they never get downloaded to your machine. Of the remaining messages, initially only the header is downloaded to the viewing area where you can decide whether to bounce, delete, keep, etc.

This program is so good that I actually paid to upgrade from the free version - something almost totally unheard of around these parts.

The main advantage with the Pro version is that it will handle multiple accounts.

osgood · Post by **osgood** » Wed 05 May, 2004 7:44 am

I used Mailwasher for a few months last year and my spam intake increased dramatically...up to 50 per day.
After uninstalling it the spam volume slowly decreased over a couple of months down to just a few each day.
Co-incidence??? I don't know!

Post by **John** » Wed 05 May, 2004 8:44 am

Hi Ormond,

Long time no see...

Ever since my ISP implemented their spam killing software my junk has been reduced from hundreds a day down to under ten.

What's this I hear about an Oz forum?

osgood · Post by **osgood** » Wed 05 May, 2004 10:24 am

G'day John,
It is a while isn't it.
Yes we have a forum down here. Its been going for a couple of years or so. Biggest problem is getting framers to participate!

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Wed 05 May, 2004 6:06 pm

Mail Washer is a good utility. BUT.. the problem is if you 'bounce' then you are actually acknowledging that there is an anctive email account.
Use the Delete an Blacklist.. but never bounce...

Post by **John** » Wed 05 May, 2004 6:17 pm

Er..

No.

When you send an email to an invalid address, it is Bounced back to the sender. (Try sending an email to x@aol.com)

If a spammer paid attention to such things, he would surmise that all emails which did not bounce must have been sent to valid addresses.

For a better explaination, from the horse's mouth, see http://www.mailwasher.net/faq.php#_Q._W ... mmers_know

markw · Post by **markw** » Fri 07 May, 2004 9:06 am

I started this topic on the basis that i had noted that my email address had been hijacked - today i had a notification from Daniel Simons (D & J Simons) - his antivirus system had detected virus in an attachment sent from my email m@8bg.co.uk, i have certainly never sent Daniel a message- and neither he or his business is in my address book- its a strange coincidence that almost all the messages that i am aware of have been sent to framing related sites - as i said in the starter post i think that member lists on forums make them targets for spammers and virus spreaders (not sure what you would call a virus spreader, but i can think of a few choice terms). The point that alarms me is that my business name is abused within the community that i trade in - I know that logically the reason that the emails turn up in the "trade" is that the virus has got into someones address book - and there are bound to be trade contacts in all of our address books. My advice - even if you think your system is virus free - make sure you have the latest virus update for your antivirus software - and scan the whole system - you might be suprised at what you find. If you dont have virus software you can get it for free from www.grisoft.com - if you get an email from me with an attachment and you dont know me - beware - it will almost certainly be infected.

Post by **John** » Fri 07 May, 2004 1:55 pm

Another (likely) way that the spammers can pick up your email address is to harvest it from the web.

Mark, a Google search returns a single result for your address (m@8bg.co.uk) - www.fineart.co.uk/qualifs/gcflist.htm (The Fine Art Trade Guild).

A number of years ago, when the FATG first set up their site, they caused me no end of frustration when they never got round to correcting their entry of my email address. After a couple of months and several, more or less, dismissive replies to my requests for this to be put right, I just gave up. Of course I now see that they did me a huge favour.

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