Can just highlighting a email transfer a virus.

Hello,
I just received an email with an attachment.
I highlighted it so it could be deleted.
Once it was highlighted a window opened asking to save it to disk?
I clicked cancel and deleted the email.
Is it possible that I just got infected.
Thanks,
Paul

No.

No.

No.

But you should have a virus scanner checking incoming files, especially if you use Outlook or Eudora. A good free one is AVG from http://www.grisoft.com

HTH

Thanks everyone,
I don't ever open file attachments.
Do I still need virus protection?
Sincerely,
Paul

I dont download and start any files from the net (unless from the very trusted source) so I dont even have an antivirus.
But attachment in an email is still #1 source of virii and trojan

I would recommend getting one, as someone said before you can get a pretty good free one called AVG, if you would prefer to buy one I recommend the following:

-*Kaspersky Labs AVP Toolkit Pro - http://www.avp.ru/
Symantec Norton Antivirus 2001 (with Norton Personal Firewall)
+Datafellows F-Secure Antivirus - http://www.datafellows.com/download...ase/tools.shtml

- = I think they give a lite dos version away free...
* = Known to slow certain programs startup down
+ = Gives a free dos version away (complete with a bg scanner).

The free dos versions are highly capable of removing any windows trojan or virus, but only the F-Secure one has a windows background scanner (sits on your tray bar).

I generally keep two AV's around a DOS one (F-Secure usually) and a windows one (usually Symantec Norton AV 2000) just to be safe.

Another good idea is to turn off your viewing pane in Outlook / Outlook Express, there are some new viruses that use an old MIME exploit to transmit themselves, so even if you don't open the attachment you can still get hit. Example:

http://www.avp.ru/news.asp?news=0&nview=1&id=229&page=2

http://www.avp.ru/news.asp?news=0&nview=1&id=223&page=3

http://securityresponse.symantec.co...trans.b@mm.html

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/tr...in/MS01-020.asp

Also, I recommend using WindowsUpdate to keep windows up-to-date as much as possible. That way you can be sure that most of the "olde" exploits can't be used.

Hope this helps in someway...

I think getting an antivirus is a good thing to do. Cause right now virus are available which would infect your machine when you just read them through outlook express or similar clients. you dont even need to open the attachment.

So better get one. There are good free ones too. So why not to use them ???

JD

Hello,
Well I hope this is the final chapter.
I installed Microsoft critical updates.
Then I purchased Norton Virus 2002.
It turns out I did have a virus.
Don’t know exactly where it came from,
but it was safely deleted and hopefully nothing bad will come from it.
Thanks to all for the advice, it was much apprieated.
Sincerely,
Paul

I beg to differ with the "no" answers above, at least for Microsoft Outlook.

Outlook and Outlook Express have a default setting which displays the contents of the email in the bottom pane whenever you highlight the email in list view. There have been several viruses that needed nothing more than to be displayed in order to execute some malicious Jscript or VBscript code. I have seen these myself on several systems.

I think one of the more clever approaches was to use VBscript to pop up an innocuous-looking dialog box, with an OK, and Cancel button. The user would be tempted to click Cancel, rather than the "X" to close the window, which then allows the script to do anything it wants on the system. Translation: always click the X, if you are not sure what it is.

I believe much of this has been fixed in the most recent updates to Outlook, but I recommend never trusting Outlook to display unwanted emails.

You can change the default setting so emails are not automatically displayed when selected: Go to View->Layout, and uncheck the "Show preview pane" checkbox. Now you can get rid of a suspicious email without viewing its contents.

I mentioned it too.
and I think getting a good antivirus tool is best thing to do.

JD

Oh, yes... I see that post now, and the other one about turning off previewing. Guess I didn't read far enough.

Of course, if you are using Windows, a good antivirus program is a must.

And even so, the best thing to do is never use Outlook at all. Opera has a very nice email client that looks and acts just like Outlook Express, but has none of the ridiculous scripting vulnerabilities built into it.

For those who really depend on the full-featured Outlook, well, then I don't know what to say, but just always be prepared for disaster. An antivirus program only works AFTER the first few people have already been hit by the virus, so some of you will be hit, no matter what.

Hello,
The name of the virus a got was Badtrans.
It did enter my system without opening the attachment.
You can get the technical details about the "Badtrans" worm at
http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/ve...trans.b@mm.html
I do use Outlook Express and will now change the settings.

Sincerely,
Paul

badtrans is pretty "bad"

I use outlook express, and norton AntiVirus, updated everytime there is an update (I am connected 24/24) gets the job well done. It scans incoming messages and when an attachment is a virus it asks if I want to repair, quarantine or delete.. I choose delete everytime.

But you don't have to open attachments to get a virus, if you use outlook (or probably others are this way) some messages opens web browsers as soon as you highlight the message. I'm sure there are a lot of wayt to send virus trhu those, but probably that a good anti virus will see them also directly when receiving emails from the server.

An anti virus cannot be bad, even if it's not the complete protection. This along with not opening attachments will get you pretty safe

Etienne

Besides an antivirus, do yourself a favor DROP OUTLOOK, use EUDORA or others. And also do not trust IE, try Opera or Netscape.