Do I have a computer virus?

[TUS 373]

Another PHs member contacted me recently to say they had a suspicious email from me, one which I confirmed to him that I didn't send. Likewise, today in my email inbox, I get a message delivery failure notification. However, I don't recognise the email the original message was sent too and I didn't send it, although it does look like it came from my machine ?? Title for it was "Your Lie is Going Around the World!".

I use Norton AV with all current signatures, and have also used McAffees Stinger Tool. Neither have detected anything on my PC.

So what's going on then? Something somewhere spoofing my address and its all gone full circle with emails coming back to me at my legitimate email address?

>>> Edited by TUS 373 on Saturday 10th April 16:03

[simpo two]

Could be the latter - I had a spam mail from 'myself' last week!

[Pies]

It could be somebody else has the virus and you are in there address book hence you get the mails

[Mr E]

Someone else has a virus, and has spoofed a mail to you that appears to be from someone else.

Ignore it. A lot of people don't run up to date AV stuff. I'm getting 20+ a day.

Most annoying.

[nighthawk]

Aye, it'll have been sent from someone elses pc.
Your mail address would have been in it's address book after you sent it a ligitimate mail.

As long as you run upto date AV protection, you've nothing to worry about.

[TUS 373]

Thanks for the reassurance everyone. I've double checked my PC and can't find anything - so like you say, must be from somewhere else.

[tvradict]

i keep getting mail delivery errors in my hotmail inbox. i delete them immediatly.

[Podie]

It's sounds like one of the current crop of mass mailing worms... probably "netsky" or one of its derivatives (I think we're up to "q" or "s" at the moment).

It's quite a clever little - it constructs messages using its own SMTP engine, harvests email addresses from the victim machine and spoofs the From: address of messages.

Your virus check is probably picking out the dodgy stuff, but unfortunately no one seems to have figured out how to stop the rest of the mail just yet.

Assuming you have the option on your virus scanner, I'd recommend you turn "heuristics" ON.

If you're concerned you may have the virus, then download a "stinger" from here... http://vil.nai.com/vil/stinger

Hope that helps.

[byebyegti]

i get the same failed mail e-mail, i contacted my ISP and they said all it was is, someone is sending spam anonomasly (sorry about my spelling) but using your e-mail as a return ddress. so what has happend is they have sent an e-mail to a dead e-mail address but because your e-mail is the return you get the failed notice. you dont have a virus.

[Podie]

byebyegti said:

i get the same failed mail e-mail, i contacted my ISP and they said all it was is, someone is sending spam anonomasly (sorry about my spelling) but using your e-mail as a return ddress. so what has happend is they have sent an e-mail to a dead e-mail address but because your e-mail is the return you get the failed notice. you dont have a virus.

sounds about right.

So what happens is, someone gets the virus. It looks at all the e-mail addresses on it and collects them. Then it writes and e-mail and passes the virus on... using YOUR e-mail address, so it LOOKS real! Sneaky huh?

However, if the address is wrong, spoofed or not used, it gives YOU the failure notice, as "you" sent it.

In all cases, if your anti-virus is up to date, you should be fine.

Hope that helps.