working out who's sending me emails with sober.y virus

Hey Everyone

Hope someone can help, I'm trying to stop the person who is sending me emails with sober.y virus I get about 100 a day.

ANyone got any ideas


thanks

 

Hi, welcome to forums.

It's impossible to stop any *sending* emails containing viruses, but it's possible to keep yourself pretty safe and there are ways to make life easier.

First, are you using Outlook/Outlook Express?

I'd suggest changing client.... and use thunderbird/thebat/etc. etc. where you can set filters so anything coming in containing certain subject material automatically moves into the Trash/Garbage/Deleted Folder, plus they are much safer in general.

but if you prefer OE and some do, I shall give some tips on OE as that seems to be the general ones used.

First in OE, under Tools in Menu Bar, select Options... under Security Tab, make sure you check the 'Restricted Sites Zone' button, you want OE to associate with the tighter security afforded in IE's Restrticted Sites Zone.

Now another thing while still using the Options window, under 'Maintenance' TAB, make sure you select "Empty messages from the 'Deleted Items' folder on exit".... this will automatically clean out the crap messages from the 'Deleted Items' folder when you shut OE down.

Still in that same Options, under 'Read' Tab, make sure you check "Read all messages in plain text".
This is IMO the most important singular thing you can do, stops any coded in HTML being utilised to infect. Now, of course this means you won't be able to see all the pretty pics, colours, but so what.

BUT if you insist on having those pretty pics, colours then along the Menu Bar, click View and select 'Layout....'

Make sure you UNcheck the 'Show Preview Pane'. This stops messages being automatically read and you only see the headers, that way, if a pile of crap comes in, simply select the lot or what you want, drap them to the Deleted Items folder on left and that's got rid of them, without them having been 'previewed' which means opened and thus cause problems if infected.
If you want to read genuine ones, simply double click to open them, or conversely right click and select Open.

Also if unsure or want more info on a message, right click on the message, select 'Properties' and click Details TAB, then Message Source and you will see a whole heap of info., plus you can still read the message in plain text also.

Now, there is another way to help, but this involves in you either getting a free/paid for third party app like MailWasher, which goes out to your ISP's Mail Server, downloads all your messages [usually just the headers] into it, you can then still generally preview them in plain text, but also any not known, you can simply delete by checking them and then processing, which will in turn send back, deleting them from the server, so if you open up your main email client, only genuine ones left will download.

The one I use, MailWasher Pro, has the ability to then Delete/Bounce/Blacklist.
This means, it sends out to the server, deletes the email, then sends back a message to the sender, saying your email address has 'Permanent Fatal Errors' in it, so they think it's non-existant, and then adds that sender to a 'Blacklist' so next time any come from same source/domain, it will be autochecked and you simply hit the 'Process' button, and does it.

There is some debate on whether doing the 'Bounce' part is effective since lots of crud comes in from bots/spamming machines, but I still get some tiny satisfaction. After a while, you should find they will dwindle in size coming into you.

Cheers, TAS