NAV/virus situation -- couldn't sleep -- please help. 5 weird e-mails just showed up.

I submitted the previous message yesterday with the subject: NAV has detected a virus on your computer.
So far I have only received 2 responses that don't answer any of my questions. One of the responses said to simply delete the files. How do I know I won't be deleting an important one? How are these viruses getting into my computer if I have NAV? I thought that kept me protected.
Now there is a new twist to my situation -- Last night 5 new e-mails mysteriously appeared at the bottom of my inbox. (I let old messages build up before I decide what to do with them -- right now there are 102 with the oldest dated ones at the bottom of the list). These 5 e-mails are unopened, unlike my old ones. Two of them are dated in 2001 -- I didn't even have this computer in 2001. They both have strange wording. One for example says: (from) [email protected] and the subject says: depeignee Stuck in a dead end job? campista.
The other 3 e-mails say they are from NAV. They have no subject and under date they say none. I opened one of those and this is what is said:
Norton AntiVirus deleted the following email message because it was infected with a virus:

From:
To:
Subject:

And that's all it said. The From, To and Subject were blank.

I would be so grateful for your help.
Donna J

 

OK so you received some strange emails, some of which Norton protected you from because they had viruses.

Whats the problem?

Think about the message that it deleted the messages because of the viruses. Then think about your question of how the viruses are getting into your computer even though you have Norton. The message says it protected you from the virus.

 

I would just delete the messages, anytime I have ever got a message like that it has been a porn link I changed e-mail addresses because I couldn't get them to stop. I don't know how they got my address, just started showing up from several different locations.

 

Are you using outlook express. Sounds like you have the preview pane open. If you hover over a message it opens automatically and norton finds the virus and cleans it. For better security go to view\layout\then remove the check from preview pane. Now your mail will not open till you click on it giving you the opportunity to delete any that you don't want. A good rule of thumb is if you don't recognize the sender just delete it.

Does this help?

jm100dm

 

(quote)
So far I have only received 2 responses that don't answer any of my questions. One of the responses said to simply delete the files. How do I know I won't be deleting an important one? How are these viruses getting into my computer if I have NAV? I thought that kept me protected.
(unquote)

Hi inthegarden/Donna. The reply to your last question does indeed answer your question. Remove them as Tony Klein says.

The viruses are getting onto your computer because that's what viruses do, NAV lives on your computer, it can't catch any other type of virus other than the ones that get to your computer. NAV does indeed protect you from viruses, the ones that get to your computer, the only ones you're/it is worried about. It cannot nor does it want to protect you from viruses that are not on your computer, obviously. It doesn't stop you getting them, it deals with them once you have them, that is the nature of the beast.
In your case it seems to have done it's job well.

 

In response to jm100dm - I use Outlook on Windows xp - no preview pane and I never open unfamiliar e-mails.
And Moby, I don't really feel that many of my questions have been answered . . . such as what happens to the infected files if I delete them? And how did I get those weird messages with old or no dates -- in 6 years of being online, I have never had anything like that happen.
I'm not ungrateful -- maybe I was hoping too much for more comprehensive answers/help.
Thanks to those of you who took the time to try.
Donna J

 

Hi Donna, you didn't sound ungratefull at all, I was refering to the original post with my response. It is worrying when you get viruses and sometimes they do come in bunches so to speak.
One example of why you'd get lots of viruses (maybe not yours) is that a lot of viruses get into peoples address books and mail themselves to everyone who's in there. You will have lots of people in your address book and you will be in lots of peoples address book yourself, your mutual friends will be in each others address book. If one of you gets one, it gets sent to each contact in there, then when it get's to another address book, you're in there too, so you may get it again from a different person, and so on. If no-one had anti virus at all, you'd get it from lots of mutual friends, contacts etc and you'd all be sending it to each other, without knowing. Normally this will get stopped by the different peoples anti virus kicking in.
You got those weird messages with no dates etc because they are viruses. I wouldn't get bogged down with why it had such a date or why it said such and such, viruses come in all shapes and sizes, with all manner of messages and can pretend to be as old or as young as they like, or as the starter of the virus likes. The date and message of a virus is irrelevent really, it doesn't mean anything and it doesn't mean they are scarier because you can't understand them. They are just a virus that need squishing.
Norton antivirus has different settings, you pick the settings. But basically, what happens is this.
Some files can get infected with a virus but can be repaired (say if the virus gets activated for eg and does it's stuff)
Some viruses get caught before being activated (sounds like yours)
The settings in your NAV sound like you first try and repair them, and if repair is not successful, they get put into quarantine, ie they cannot be accessed or executed. If a file is indeed a virus on it's own then it won't want to get repaired so it doesn't(NAV recognises this) so gets put into quarantine. They are safe there.
As to your question, what if these files are important? They are already out of your system by being in quarantine. Nothing can get at them and they can't do whatever they did, so if they were indeed important, NAV might have fixed them, but more importantly, your system would already have fallen over, as they are not for use already where they now are.
Hope this goes further in explaining.