Virus scanners and protection programs can only react to new variants after the fact. With this in mind, be aware of the potential dangers and keep your virus software up-to-date. Also, be suspicious of emails that appear to be sent from a legitimate address instructing you to open a .zip attachment and to enter a password. This will execute a virus. Be very suspicious of attachments sent to you - do not open any attachment(s) that you are not expecting. Some virus email have text within the body stating: "Attachment: No Virus found" ... Any statement, true or otherwise can be typed into the body of an email, so don't assume the message has been scanned and is virus-free. Please familiarize yourself with how your installed virus software functions. Click here to review the latest virus threats from Symantec's web site.
Why am I receiving e-mails that claim I sent out a virus?
Unfortunately, many viruses nowadays send to random addresses, and some even forge the "From:" address, so they may appear to come from someone who did not actually send them. This means you can expect to see more and more messages from people you don't know, as well as FORGED worm-generated email from addresses of people that you do know.
These worms can cause many unlikely results including:
Worms can send email all over the world appearing to be sent from YOUR email account. (Actually, your address is learned from an address book of a worm-ridden pc and then mimicked as the sender on the email)
They cause more mail generated from mail servers responding to tell you that you have a virus (when it wasn't your actual account that sent it, but your forged email address) and they received mail from you containing a virus.
Spawned email can look like this: 'failure to deliver' or '...detected a virus in the mail you sent', though you didn't send the mail and your pc is most likely not infected. This can also cause the mail delivery system to slow down.
Emails are generated to join online clubs or submit subscriptions from your copied email address. You may receive mail saying you have joined. While some of this is SPAM, you may not want to send a reply, just delete or store in a folder. (Note: Quite often, replying or opting out of spam emails for which you did not sign up, simply verifies your address as an active account and therefore increase your spam!)
What can be done to fight this?
There has to be a three-pronged approach.
1. Be vigilant, and scan emails "before" opening them. We often have the bad habit of opening the first email, and then clicking for the next one, without scanning the subject line or the address. We can't do that any more. Nor can we just go opening attachments. There are some rules of thumb - if you're not expecting an attachment, be careful. If you don't know the person who sent you the attachment, be careful. If the attachment is anything other than an image, Word or Excel file, be very, very careful. Although Executable files (i.e. with a .exe file extension) are blocked, you may receive them in compressed .zip files. Other common file extensions to be extremely wary of are .pif, .scr, .dot, .vbs, .com, .bat. These often contain a virus!
2. Install virus protection. If you don't have an up-to-date version of a good virus protection software loaded, get one now. Even with good virus protection that updates daily, your computer can still become infected. That's because viruses mutate, and new ones are launched almost every day. A good software program is backed up by researchers and programmers who strive to write code that will kill the bugs within hours of their appearance, so loading software once and hoping that will work is not enough.
However, without the third step, you may still be at risk.
3. Update and upgrade your Windows machines often. Without the patch recently issued for Windows, the latest worm might still be resident on a machine, in spite of your Anti-Virus software's best efforts. Patches and upgrades work hand in hand with your virus protection and your diligence and common sense. You can go to the Microsoft site to download critical Windows updates for your specific operating system. Choose "Windows Update" or "Get critical security patches".