Q: Why do I keep getting e-mails telling me I have been sending e-mail viruses to other people — usually folks I’ve never even heard of — although I know my computer isn’t infected?
A: This is happening often lately, and it is a corollary to another common scam — the fake virus warning that appears to come from your e-mail provider’s technical support staff. These things happen because it is easy for a malicious programmer to “spoof” anyone’s e-mail address.
An estimated 90 percent of e-mail worms automatically scan contact lists and other files on an infected person’s computer to hunt for e-mail addresses. The worms not only send themselves to those addresses, but also churn out infected messages that appear to be from the addressees.
As a result, if you get an e-mail out of the blue that seems to be from someone you know and it has an attached file, there is only a 50-50 chance it is bona fide, according to Vincent Gullotto, Network Associates Inc. vice president for the McAfee Anti-Virus Emergency Response Team.
If such a message gets detected and rejected by an e-mail network’s virus-protecting software, the blocking system will fire off a response to the purported sender — something along the lines of “Hey, you sent us a virus.”
The problem, of course, is that when an e-mail worm is on a rampage, millions of spoofed e-mails get sent, generating millions of these automatic replies from virus protection systems. So even if your computer stays clean, your inbox can fill up with messages relating to the virus.
So what should you do?
Don’t worry about the messages — as long as you subscribe to a virus-protecting service and you make sure it keeps itself up to date. The program should tell you the last time it got a new list of the Internet’s top threats.
For added peace of mind, have the program scan your computer every so often (frequent Internet users should do it at least once a week) to make sure nothing untoward has managed to sneak in.
E-mail spoofing is also a popular tactic for spammers.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
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