Receiving many virus-attached e-mails daily

I recently subscribed to several Microsoft newsgroups. Never having done so before, and being unfamiliar with the system, I elected to have messages downloaded to my Outlook Express 6. I foolishly used my main e-mail address (an e-mail address was required for a subscription). Since that time (last week), I've been getting about 4 or 5 viruses a day in the form of attachments. Some are in the guise of Microsoft updates (but I know Microsoft does not sent updates in the form of attached .exe files). Fortunately, Norton scans and finds all the viruses. I've been looking in the properties of the e-mails to find who sent them, then add these addresses to my blocked senders list, but this is not working well. Is there anything I can do, short of closing my ISP account and opening a new one? My ISP (Net Zero) says I can't change my member ID (which is part of my e-mail address). I have to close the account. Any suggestions will be appreciated. Thanks.

Bojidar
Fri May 07 01:50:44 CDT 2004

Nothing can be done. Many of us have to live with this - if you give your
real email on public place be ready for viruses and spam. As spam filter I
can recommend you spampal.org.....

Alternative is to make new main email and for posting to newsgroups use a
free one (yahoo/hotmail).

Bojidar Alexandrov

anonymous
Fri May 07 06:34:56 CDT 2004

Whilst it is true that not exposing your main email
address is the most important thing, it's not true that
nothing can be done.

Use an email program with powerful antispam facilities
such as Microsoft Outlook 2003 (as in Office 2003).

If you can, change your email address and use a good
email service provider.

Even if you cannot conveniently change your email
address, good email service providers can pick up email
from your old address, filter it and pass it on to your
new, more secure mailbox.

There _are_ lots of effective things that can be done.

But the most important thing is not to expose your main
email address, and never to reply to spam.

(See also my earlier posted reply to "Make my computer
secure".)


Hope this helps,

Cecil Ward.
http://www.cecilward.com

>-----Original Message-----
>Nothing can be done. Many of us have to live with this -
if you give your
>real email on public place be ready for viruses and
spam. As spam filter I
>can recommend you spampal.org.....
>
>Alternative is to make new main email and for posting to
newsgroups use a
>free one (yahoo/hotmail).
>
>Bojidar Alexandrov
>
>
>.
>

anonymous
Fri May 07 09:26:08 CDT 2004

Thanks, Cecil and Bojidar

Cecil by the following paragraph, did you mean that even if I do change my main e-mail address, the virus senders can find me through my old address, and this might be a futile effort? Or did you mean that my friends who might not have my new address can find me? I guess it's the same, either way. Thank

"Even if you cannot conveniently change your email
address, good email service providers can pick up email
from your old address, filter it and pass it on to your
new, more secure mailbox.

N
Sat May 08 02:38:22 CDT 2004

In article <994101c43427$52ac77e0$a401280a@phx.gbl>,
anonymous@discussions.microsoft.com says...

> Use an email program with powerful antispam facilities
> such as Microsoft Outlook 2003 (as in Office 2003).

That's powerful? More so than MSOE, I am sure; but can it compare with
POPFile, or K9?

--
Norman
~Win dain a lotica, En vai tu ri, Si lo ta
~Fin dein a loluca, En dragu a sei lain
~Vi fa-ru les shutai am, En riga-lint

N
Sat May 08 02:56:43 CDT 2004

In article <DEC1D424-6ABC-444A-A196-0A12BC9438B9@microsoft.com>,
anonymous@discussions.microsoft.com says...

> I recently subscribed to several Microsoft newsgroups. Never having done
> so before, and being unfamiliar with the system, I elected to have
> messages downloaded to my Outlook Express 6. I foolishly used my main
> e-mail address (an e-mail address was required for a subscription).

Actually, it wasn't. But, if you never used MSOE to access an NNTP service
before, you wouldn't have known that. MSOE only wants to see an RFC 2822
compliant email address. Can't.spam@me.invalid would be accepted by MSOE,
and it would be ideal for using on NNTP servers. Or, you could be creative,
as long as you restrain your TLD choice to .invalid. Oh, and you need the
'@' somewhere, also, to meet the RFC requirements.

Just don't use a "made up" domain name. If it is already registered, you
won't have the owner's permission to use it. And even if it isn't
registered, it isn't yours to use until you register it.

> Since that time (last week), I've been getting about 4 or 5 viruses a day
> in the form of attachments. Some are in the guise of Microsoft updates
> (but I know Microsoft does not sent updates in the form of attached .exe
> files).

> Fortunately, Norton scans and finds all the viruses. I've been looking in
> the properties of the e-mails to find who sent them, then add these
> addresses to my blocked senders list, but this is not working well.

> Is there anything I can do, short of closing my ISP account and opening a
> new one? My ISP (Net Zero) says I can't change my member ID (which is
> part of my e-mail address). I have to close the account. Any suggestions
> will be appreciated.

If you only used that email address in the Microsoft groups, you may be able
to salvage that email address. Stop using it for these groups; and never use
it on any other NNTP server. I had created an address for these groups only
which started getting hit with 80-100 Swen messages per day, within three
hours of exposure in these groups. I killed it, and created a new one. My
MTA continued to log 80-100 hits a day, all rejected, until about 60 days
later. It stopped almost as suddenly as it started. From 80-100, down to 20-
30 in just three days, then 10-15 in another two weeks. Finaly, after 90
days, only about 1 per month.

--
Norman
~Win dain a lotica, En vai tu ri, Si lo ta
~Fin dein a loluca, En dragu a sei lain
~Vi fa-ru les shutai am, En riga-lint