How do I stop 150+ virus email a day?

  • Thread starter Thread starter I'm_A_Victim
  • Start date Start date
I

I'm_A_Victim

For about a week I have been getting from 80 to as many as 200 spam type
email.

Some have netSky virus attached. Some are " complaints" that I have sent out
a virus.

I have done a complete check of my PC and am pretty confident I am not
sending anything. I do know that some of the messages have spoofed 2 of my
email addresses.

While I have traced a few of the virus email and even received personal
email from a couple administrators claiming to have traced the infected PC.
There just doesn't seem to be any let up.

Do I have to give up my email addresses?

rwmarbleAT yahoo DOT com
 
I'm_A_Victim said:
For about a week I have been getting from 80 to as many as 200 spam type
email.

Some have netSky virus attached. Some are " complaints" that I have sent out
a virus.

I have done a complete check of my PC and am pretty confident I am not
sending anything. I do know that some of the messages have spoofed 2 of my
email addresses.

While I have traced a few of the virus email and even received personal
email from a couple administrators claiming to have traced the infected PC.
There just doesn't seem to be any let up.

Do I have to give up my email addresses?

rwmarbleAT yahoo DOT com
Click to expand...
You have a couple of options.

1. Install, update and run some adware/spyware removal tools (Adaware
6.1, SpyBot and I suggest also installing SpyBlaster to prevent Spyware
from entering in the first place. This should help lower the amount of
spam you're receiving. You could also contact your ISP or whoever
provides your Email address and ask them for any counter-measures they
can implement in your aid. Once you've done this you essentially need to
just wait for the trend to pass. These spam attacks tend to move
around and at the moment the phase has reached you. To help ease the
pain you could try installing an anti-spam utility, there are many good
ones available - read some reviews on some and implement a robust yet
trustworthy one.

2. Give up the Email address (try the above first)
 
For about a week I have been getting from 80 to as many as 200 spam
type email.

Some have netSky virus attached. Some are " complaints" that I have
sent out a virus.

I have done a complete check of my PC and am pretty confident I am not
sending anything. I do know that some of the messages have spoofed 2
of my email addresses.

While I have traced a few of the virus email and even received
personal email from a couple administrators claiming to have traced
the infected PC. There just doesn't seem to be any let up.

Do I have to give up my email addresses?

rwmarbleAT yahoo DOT com
Click to expand...

You can use the free Mailwasher and filter delete the bad emails at the
email server before pulling them to your Inbox. If you're using OE, then
you can take OE out of its Auto Send/Recv at Startup and on a Timed Basis
of sending and receiving emails by itself. That will mean you would use
the SEND/RECV button to send emails out of the Outbox and receive emails
into the Inbox. But first you would use MW to filter delete the emails
you don't want at the email server.

MW also has a virus checker too.

Duane :)
 
For about a week I have been getting from 80 to as many as 200 spam
type email.

Some have netSky virus attached. Some are " complaints" that I have
sent out a virus.

I have done a complete check of my PC and am pretty confident I am not
sending anything. I do know that some of the messages have spoofed 2 of
my email addresses.

While I have traced a few of the virus email and even received personal
email from a couple administrators claiming to have traced the infected
PC. There just doesn't seem to be any let up.

Do I have to give up my email addresses?

rwmarbleAT yahoo DOT com
Click to expand...

Junk seems to come in three categories:

1) True spam (unsolicited commercial e-mail)
2) Malware spreaders
3) Auto and manual responses

(1) comes from spammers that have collected you e-mail address. Once they
have it, there is not much you can do but filter and/or change your
address.

(2) usually comes from an infected PC that also has your address on it.
Unfortunately, it can be difficult to trace back to the source. Hopefully,
it will die off as PC's get cleaned up.
 
On that special day, I'm_A_Victim, ([email protected]) said...
Do I have to give up my email addresses?
Click to expand...

In fact I had to, when I was swamped with Swen mails (I am a frequent
writer in various newsgroups).

As Swen avoided to use all addresses that contained "spam" or "remove",
I chose what you can see below.

The effect was amazing. Since then, not only the worm mails have ceased,
and there are extremely few coming into my mail box (obviously, the worm
programmers are copycats), the spam also has decreased considerably. I
am free of all those offers for credit, methods to increase the size of
something, or pills.

What remains are the Nigerians and the Phishers which don't seem to
bother if an address with "spam" inside is for real (mine is) or isn't.

The downside is that your contacts will probably be a little annoyed or
amused having to reply to a declared "spamfighter", but as I am no
business person which had to keep up a reputation, I don't care much.


Gabriele Neukam

(e-mail address removed)
 
For about a week I have been getting from 80 to as many as 200 spam type
email.

Some have netSky virus attached. Some are " complaints" that I have sent out
a virus.

I have done a complete check of my PC and am pretty confident I am not
sending anything. I do know that some of the messages have spoofed 2 of my
email addresses.

While I have traced a few of the virus email and even received personal
email from a couple administrators claiming to have traced the infected PC.
There just doesn't seem to be any let up.

Do I have to give up my email addresses?

rwmarbleAT yahoo DOT com
Click to expand...

There's not a lot you can do bout _getting_ email spam,
which frequently has a virus-laden attachment, but you can
prevent them from doing any damage;

Use an antivirus product with frequent updates.

Use an email client that has a baysian filter that
will identify most of the spam as junk automatically.
I like mozilla or thunderbird (from www.mozilla.org)

Use a firewall. I like Zone Alarm.

Apply all the critical patches at update.mictosoft.com
 
For about a week I have been getting from 80 to as many as 200 spam type
email.

Some have netSky virus attached. Some are " complaints" that I have sent out
a virus.

I have done a complete check of my PC and am pretty confident I am not
sending anything. I do know that some of the messages have spoofed 2 of my
email addresses.

While I have traced a few of the virus email and even received personal
email from a couple administrators claiming to have traced the infected PC.
There just doesn't seem to be any let up.

Do I have to give up my email addresses?

rwmarbleAT yahoo DOT com
Click to expand...

If you have 150+ spam type mails,.. than you have no spamfilter... get
one iy you want to keep your pal adresses,... else,.. indeed dump
them,... but that's only a temporary solution until spam comes back...
--
Freeware revieuws, honest, no nags
www.NONDISPUTANDUM.com
protect, clean, office, webbuilding
newsfeeds, entertainment, searching
.... & the internet addiction test!
 
Gabriele said:
On that special day, I'm_A_Victim, ([email protected]) said...




In fact I had to, when I was swamped with Swen mails (I am a frequent
writer in various newsgroups).

As Swen avoided to use all addresses that contained "spam" or "remove",
I chose what you can see below.

The effect was amazing. Since then, not only the worm mails have ceased,
and there are extremely few coming into my mail box (obviously, the worm
programmers are copycats), the spam also has decreased considerably. I
am free of all those offers for credit, methods to increase the size of
something, or pills.

What remains are the Nigerians and the Phishers which don't seem to
bother if an address with "spam" inside is for real (mine is) or isn't.

The downside is that your contacts will probably be a little annoyed or
amused having to reply to a declared "spamfighter", but as I am no
business person which had to keep up a reputation, I don't care much.

Gabriele Neukam

(e-mail address removed)
Click to expand...

Why didn't you simply put a NOSPAM, REMOVE or such in your e-mail
address postings, as many people do?
 
Gabriele - 09.05.2004 21:52 :
Why didn't you simply put a NOSPAM, REMOVE or such in your e-mail
address postings, as many people do?
Click to expand...

first: excuse my terrible English. It's only my 4th language :-(

second: there are providers (GMX for example) which do not allow such
pseudo addresses. I tried that with NOSPAM. A person tried to send an
email (PM) to me to this address, got an automated message from GMX that
this from address isn'nt a real/reachable address. The emailing person
then contacted abuse. Last not least, my provider GMX canceled my account.

Please think about giving such a generalizing hint. It could produce
real problems.

And please: Do'nt give me another lesson in English. Most people should
understand the substance I mean.
 
Peter Seiler said:
Gabriele - 09.05.2004 21:52 :


first: excuse my terrible English. It's only my 4th language :-(

second: there are providers (GMX for example) which do not allow such
pseudo addresses. I tried that with NOSPAM. A person tried to send an
email (PM) to me to this address, got an automated message from GMX that
this from address isn'nt a real/reachable address. The emailing person
then contacted abuse. Last not least, my provider GMX canceled my account.

Please think about giving such a generalizing hint. It could produce
real problems.

And please: Do'nt give me another lesson in English. Most people should
understand the substance I mean.
Click to expand...

There are more than one person in the world named Gabriele methinks.
 
Based on what you have written, you are probably the victim of a one or more
folks that are infected with viruses and have you in their address books. I
was a similar victim about a year ago and I tracked down one IP address to a
friend who swore she did not have a virus. She let me look at her machine
and she did have a virus. Her anti-virus program had not been properly
updated. It was cranking out thousands of messages every day.

Anyway, I would suggest getting familiar with the Message Rules in Outlook
Express and based on keywords in the subject line that you decide just send
them straight to the delete folder or better yet don't even download those
messages. One option with Outlook Express is to delete the message on the
server after you've looked at the from address and subject line.

This is where you start. The next step is to buy a spam blocker and code up
who your friends and enemies are and what words you don't want to see in an
email.

Finally, change your email address. After fighting my problem for six months
that's what I decided to do. I had to scan my old mail for another six
months because I receive email from a great number of people. Actually, a
couple of thousand.

I did find most of my viruses were coming from those with my ISP and similar
IP addresses. That's how some viruses work is by taking the IP address and
echoing addresses that are close to the senders.

Make sure you have all Critical Microsoft fixes on your system, use a simple
firewall like ZoneAlarm, and keep your anti-virus program updated and test
it once in a while. I'd also recommend removing spyware with Adaware 6.

John B
 
The voice of "Gabriele" drifted in on the cyber-winds,
from the sea of virtual chaos...
Why didn't you simply put a NOSPAM, REMOVE or such in your e-mail
address postings, as many people do?
Click to expand...


Because Munging doesn't work as advertised? };8)

Yes, it may stop spam...
But even if the Munging is done correctly you may break some of your
ISP/NSP agreements, and then there's the just-don't-get-it newbies to
contend with. Oh, and when munging is done wrong you end up causing
grief to others that rightfully own those supposedly invalid address.

Besides, creating a *viral ignored* & *temporary aliases* on your email
accounts is expected nowadays. Spammers have been striping out common
mungings for years, so stuff like "RemoveThis" or "NOSPAM" just don't
work as well as they once did. At least with a mung as part of a valid
email address you stand a better chance of avoiding spam especially if
it's changed monthly.

Check out Sophos for more info on what viruses ignore what:

http://www.sophos.com/virusinfo/analyses/ (hint, search by family)

As for here...
I switched to "{month}-nospam@" after discovering Netsky.Q only ignores
"spam@" & "@spam" variations, but so far its been less successful at
tricking mundane spammers then "Spamnet-{month}@".
 
Peter Seiler wrote:
[snip]
second: there are providers (GMX for example) which do not allow such
pseudo addresses. I tried that with NOSPAM. A person tried to send an
email (PM) to me to this address, got an automated message from GMX that
this from address isn'nt a real/reachable address. The emailing person
then contacted abuse. Last not least, my provider GMX canceled my account.
Click to expand...

perhaps you should check out the services provided by
http://www.sneakemail.com, then... you might find them useful...
 
kurt wismer - 10.05.2004 17:10 :
Peter Seiler wrote:
[snip]
second: there are providers (GMX for example) which do not allow such
pseudo addresses. I tried that with NOSPAM. A person tried to send an
email (PM) to me to this address, got an automated message from GMX that
this from address isn'nt a real/reachable address. The emailing person
then contacted abuse. Last not least, my provider GMX canceled my account.
Click to expand...

perhaps you should check out the services provided by
http://www.sneakemail.com, then... you might find them useful...
Click to expand...

THX for your hint. I visited the sneakemail page. Well this is one of
more or less similar solution. But as I understood, this way I
nevertheless will get all the spammail when posting in NGs with a
sneakemail address placed. This because sneakmail afterwards will
"forward" evaen all possible spammail to my real account address!?

At the moment with my solution all spammail/PM out of a NG will be
deleted within some few hours automatically at mailinator.com and
therefore I never get spammail. The disadvantage this way is, that I
normally never get PM even "friendly" one. I'm more or less unreachable
per email/PM from without NGs. This way I got no more spams since I
parallel changed my normal account address to a new one.

What I remarked to the given hint only was, that there are ISPs (mine is
GMX for example) which do not allow "munged" and/or "unreal" From
addresses ([email protected]).

BTW: I well remember the good old days without any spam kids.
 
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