email tech ?

Off topic chat
Post Reply
tanoga
4th Gear
Posts: 674
Joined: Fri Jan 10, 2003 11:25 pm
Location: Dunstable
Contact:

email tech ?

Post by tanoga » Wed Apr 14, 2004 2:17 pm

Can any of you email tech boffins help me out.
I am receiving a lot of returned email messages that are coming from email addresses that I have never sent an email to.
Anyone know what is causing this and how do I stop it?

Prawn
4th Gear
Posts: 509
Joined: Thu Feb 13, 2003 2:49 pm
Location: West Sussex

Post by Prawn » Wed Apr 14, 2004 2:18 pm

If they have attachments they are virus mails
************

Prawn

User avatar
sitas3
5th Gear
Posts: 1208
Joined: Sun Jan 12, 2003 4:58 pm
Location: Surrey, UK

Post by sitas3 » Wed Apr 14, 2004 2:29 pm

yes i am increasingly getting more of these at work - my advice: you need a good Virus checker that sifts thru your emails before you read them. Don't click/open any message attachment that has an extension of 'PIF', BAT, SCR, EXE etc
M3 CSL - Silver Grey, a few options.

peterb
4th Gear
Posts: 847
Joined: Fri Apr 04, 2003 11:13 pm
Location: Davao, Philippines

Post by peterb » Wed Apr 14, 2004 2:50 pm

Prawn wrote:If they have attachments they are virus mails
... and if they don't, they're probably spam mails sent from someone else's machine, but using your address as the 'from' address.
07 Mitsubishi Pajero(Shogun) 3.2 Di-D
Suzuki Carry 660

tanoga
4th Gear
Posts: 674
Joined: Fri Jan 10, 2003 11:25 pm
Location: Dunstable
Contact:

Post by tanoga » Wed Apr 14, 2004 3:17 pm

None of the emails are Spam. They all have a file attached that ends with .dat with a size of about 240 bytes. I believe none of the attachements are a virus. All the "550 MAILBOX NOT FOUND" email addresses are @aol.com.

Anymore thoughts?

User avatar
FatBoy
2nd Gear
Posts: 239
Joined: Wed Jan 08, 2003 2:49 pm
Location: Coventry

Post by FatBoy » Wed Apr 14, 2004 4:41 pm

They are return notifications from invalid email addresses. A number of recent viruses automatically send themselves out to all addresses in the infected PC's address book and will select one of the addresses at rendom as the senders address. Therefore, if any of the addresses are no longer valid, the recipient's mail server will send a response to the sender (or the apparent sender i.e. you).
Just delete them. They don't, in themselves contain a virus, but they are the result of one.
However, I would recommend that any computer that is in any way connected to the Internet, should have anti-virus software installed.
We recommend Computer Associates eTrust Anti-Virus (www.ca.com). A 60 day trial version can be downloaded from their web site. It has proven to be far superior to the likes of Norton, Dr Soloman etc....and I wouldn't even touch McAfee.
You should also install some kind of firewall, preferably a separate hardware unit, although the built-in firewall in Windows XP will generally suffice for most home users.

If anyone wants any advice/help in this or any related area, by all means PM me. I run a Microsoft Cetified Partner company and I have a bunch of very clever techies who can answer most questions thrown at them.

Cheers
Paul

Prawn
4th Gear
Posts: 509
Joined: Thu Feb 13, 2003 2:49 pm
Location: West Sussex

Post by Prawn » Thu Apr 15, 2004 10:20 am

I am running Sophos Anti virus which is very good and seems to have caught everything so far, also I use an ADSL modem that has a built in hardware firewall.
************

Prawn

DJG
2nd Gear
Posts: 186
Joined: Thu Jan 30, 2003 1:38 pm
Location: Reading

Post by DJG » Thu Apr 22, 2004 10:00 am

FatBoy wrote:We recommend Computer Associates eTrust Anti-Virus (www.ca.com). A 60 day trial version can be downloaded from their web site. It has proven to be far superior to the likes of Norton, Dr Soloman etc....and I wouldn't even touch McAfee.
Hi I agree the eTrust stuff is good. Even better they have a version with one years free updates available from http://www.my-etrust.com/microsoft

Cheers,

David

User avatar
PhilT
RS246.com
Posts: 8719
Joined: Fri Jan 10, 2003 2:03 pm
Location: South Yorkshire

Post by PhilT » Tue Apr 27, 2004 7:59 am

DJG wrote:
FatBoy wrote:We recommend Computer Associates eTrust Anti-Virus (www.ca.com). A 60 day trial version can be downloaded from their web site. It has proven to be far superior to the likes of Norton, Dr Soloman etc....and I wouldn't even touch McAfee.
Hi I agree the eTrust stuff is good. Even better they have a version with one years free updates available from http://www.my-etrust.com/microsoft

Cheers,

David
:lol: - If you asked me what I do for a living.... The above description is a match. I'm often refered to the best eTrust Antivirus person at CA!!

eTrust Antivirus has two scanning engines - I moved to CA from Vet Antivirus when we were aquired in 1999.
RS246 Shop - RS246 Window Stickers and RS6 Keyrings

Current : 2016 Audi SQ7 :audibash: | Radical SR3 Supersport :notworthy: | Ultima Evolution :bash:

Ex : 2010 Nissan GT-R Premium Edition | 2014 Audi S3 Sportback | 2007 Audi Q7 4.2 TDI | Clio 172 Cup | B5 RS4, C5 RS6+ (249/999) | S2 Coupe | Ex-Police Senator 3.0 24v | Ford Escort 1.3

Post Reply

Return to “Off Topic Chat”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 74 guests