email security

[jo]

Hi

I am having a problem with my email, it appears to using
other peoples computer address books to pass on viruses,
how do i stop this? i now have the symantec antivirus but
this does not prevent me from receiving emails of failed
deliveries to poeple that i do not know and have never
emailed. I have had a company contact me to inform me that
my computer is trying to gain access to their address
books without my knowledge and for this sake alone i need
to stop this from happening.

Many thanks

Jo

 

[Graham Mandeno]

Hi Jo

I'm afraid you are much too trusting. Your email address is freely
available to the world. You can see it below in the copy of the message you
posted. For years now, unscrupulous scum have "harvested" websites and
newsgroups for email addresses. This is why we get so much spam.
Unfortunately, now writers of viruses are using databases of harvested email
addresses to "spoof" the sender's address, so it looks like a bad email has
been sent by you. Of course, any of these messages that are sent to invalid
addresses are returned to *you*.

BTW, this newsgroup is for questions relating to security in the database
development product, Microsoft Access.