[sharky]

The best way to prevent getting an virus,etc -infected email is to not open it at all. i have a number of suspicious emails that i have never opened but extremely curious if they contain a virus.
for reasons quite long to type here,i believe these emails do contain a virus or trojen.


Is there a way to find out if an email is infected without opening it? my present antivirus software does not seem to tell me if it will stop/detect an email virus before or after it is opened.


i have a antivirus software program but is there another way to determine if a email had a virus before opening it?

[CellarDweller]

Get MailWasher. It's a superb little program that enables you to preview all your email before it's downloaded from the server. That way you can stop viruses from getting in.

Now I don't even have to open my regular email client until I want to actually download the email to save it. I can read everything and decide what to keep and what to delete.

Besides that, MailWasher has other cool features, like the one that allows you to bounce back SPAM to the sender, making it appear like your address is no good.

Check it out. Best of all it's FREE.

[sharky]

thanks cellar dweller,its not loading as i type.


i'm downloading the "stable one" not the beta one of course.

[flavallee]

Sharkey:

I use Microsoft Outlook Express 6.0 and receive over 100 messages a day, of which most of them are spam and unsolicited messages. These are the steps that I use to avoid or reduce the risk of activating a virus:

I browse through the list of message headers in the INBOX and read only those messages that I know are safe and those that I am expecting to receive. All other message headers are ignored, especially those with attachments and questionable header titles.

Once I am finished reading the selected messages and replying to any of them, I highlight one of the message headers that I already read. I click Edit - Select All(which highlights the entire list), then click the "Delete" button to delete the entire list.

I then go to DELETED ITEMS and highlight one of the message headers that I already read. I click Edit - Select All(which highlights the entire list), then click the "Delete" button to delete the entire list.

http://9337387.home.icq.com/index.html

[TonyKlein]

Besides scanning the files with an antivirus, there's no foolproof method to ascertain whether a file/attachment is in fact infected.

You might consider going for an antivirus that has e-mail scanning capabilities like for example Norton Antivirus.
That constitutes a second line of defense, so to speak.

Some more recommendations:

- Disable the Preview Pane to prevent Outlook Express from downloading mail messages with potentially unsafe content. Viewing email messages with the Preview Pane can already cause some viruses to activate:

Select View, then Layout from the menu.
Uncheck the box Show Preview Pane in the Preview Pane section.
Click the OK button to save the change.

Now, from the Tools menu, select Options...
From there, select the Read tab.
Deselect the box for Automatically download message when viewing in the Preview Pane.

And to read such email safely in Outlook Express after turning off the preview pane,
*right*-click on the email, select Properties from the drop-down menu, click Details, then click Message Source.
You'll be able to see the headers and
the body of the message (including the HTML and its tags) without it doing anything else. The end result here is the same as "View Source" when dealing with web pages.

- Change your email setup so that Outlook Express won't automatically try to run any scripting or ActiveX content that you receive in your mail:

Open Outlook Express

- Go to the Tools menus
- Select Options
- Click on the Security tab
- Under Security Zones, choose Restricted Sites Zone

Press OK

[sharky]

thanks