Email Client Protection - Necessary??

Discussion in 'ESET NOD32 Antivirus' started by scams, Dec 12, 2009.

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  1. scams

    scams Registered Member

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    I have a Dell Dimension 8200 computer with windows XP Pro, ZoneAlarm, ESET NOD32, and Malwarebytes installed. I use Outlook Express for my email and newsgroups. Periodically, I keep reading that emails in Outlook Express should not be monitored by an Antivirus program due to possible corruption and secondly, this monitoring is redundent.

    I would appreciate any comments about this subject. If it suggested that NOD32 monitoring of the email in Outlook Express should be disabled, would very much appreciate the procedures in how to accomplish this disabling action. Thanks, Sam.
     
  2. siljaline

    siljaline Registered Member

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  3. Cudni

    Cudni Global Moderator

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    there were occasions in the past, few years ago, where AVs would cause errors in OE. Not sure if it is happening still. If you do disable email scanning your AV will still protect you from any malware that tries to activate on your machine
     
  4. siljaline

    siljaline Registered Member

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    That's a fair counterpoint, I have seen numerous security experts present arguments over the years that email scanning is more of an issue than an asset to an AV, let's say. Yet, error messages such as these are less frequent now with more patches to OE, OL, WLMail, etc. I would tend to side on being safe and experience the odd error message from my default email client than turn off scanning.
     
    Last edited: Dec 12, 2009
  5. chrcol

    chrcol Registered Member

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    email and http probably account for almost 100% of infections. So I would say email and http should be scanned and if anything is redundant it is real time file scanning.
     
  6. scams

    scams Registered Member

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    Many thanks for all of your replies! Sam
     
  7. siljaline

    siljaline Registered Member

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    You are most welcome.
     
  8. J-Mac

    J-Mac Registered Member

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    Not arguing the point, but I am curious as to whether you have any reference for the email part of your post.

    I can see how http would be a large source of infections, but I would be surprised if email messages are a large part at all. Or are you talking about people opening bad attachments?

    Thank you.

    Jim
     
  9. Cudni

    Cudni Global Moderator

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    it is the other way around :)
     
  10. siljaline

    siljaline Registered Member

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    That would expose you to a malware attack.
     
  11. Cudni

    Cudni Global Moderator

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    disabling real time scanning would indeed. any malware trying to execute should be caught irrespective of email and web scanning. so real time scanning is not redundant but the other 2 can be
     
    Last edited: Dec 19, 2009
  12. siljaline

    siljaline Registered Member

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    Last edited: Dec 19, 2009
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