Forums Forums Enthusiast Forums A - Z Gadgets & Tech computer address book

Would someone with much more knowledge of computer virus like to comment on this lease...I think I might be posting in the wrong place Mark sorry if I am
.............................................................

Protecting your e-mail address book,

I got this from a friend

A computer repairman says this is like having gold.

I learned a computer trick today that’s really ingenious in its simplicity. As you may know, when/if a worm virus gets into your computer it heads straight for your email address book, and sends itself to everyone in there, thus infecting all your friends and associates.

This trick won’t keep the virus from getting into your computer, but it will stop it from using your address book to spread further, and it will alert you to the fact that the worm has got into your system. Here’s what you do:

First, open your address book and click on ‘new contact,’ just as you would do if you were adding a new friend to your list of email addresses.

In the window where you would type your friend’s first name, type in’A’. For the screen name or email address, type [email protected]

Now, here’s what you’ve done and why it works:

The ‘name ‘A’ will be placed at the top of your address book as entry #1.

This will be where the worm will start in an effort to send itself to all your friends. When it tries to send itself to [email protected], it will be undeliverable because of the phony email address you entered. If the first attempt fails(which it will because of the phoney address), the worm goes no further and your friends will not be infected.

Here’ s the second great advantage of this method:

If an email cannot be delivered,
you will be notified of this in your In Box almost immediately.

Hence,if you ever get an email telling you that an email addressed [email protected] could not be delivered, you know right away that you have the worm virus in your system.

You can then take steps to get rid of it!

If everybody you know does this then you need not ever worry about opening mail from friends. DO IT NOW and pass this on to all your friends.

Thanks for your time
Organiser

In theory it may work if that's what the worm is designed to do.
How ever they can be designed to work from Z to A or even to skip the first entry.

I put my Trust in Paid for Antivirus Software. (Not the free versions).
And Regular updates.

I think the above is more for the end users peace of mind where that can be done with antivirus which updates to protect from any type of malicious attachments.

Personally I wouldn't give it out as being the best method.
Antivirus Software upto date is gold dust

im using free avast, and the comodo browser, havent had any problems since switching to comodo

The virus still has entered your computer. I therefore feel it essential to protect firstly the PC and thereby also the address book.

If you cannot, or do not want to afford Norton anti-virus and internet security, then load the AVG free software which is very very good.

Free Antivirus does not include a firewall normally.
Windows firewall all said and done can protect you pretty well for the most part.

When a virus / worm / Trojan has the ability to open connections to your computer you need a Firewall that can work in tandem with the Antivirus to close and alert you of them open connections.

Not all viruses come via e-mail.
Via Downloads, External Media (CD or DVD or Memory Stick and so on).

Having free Antivirus is better than NONE but if your contacts and information on your computer is important to you then the small investment of about £25 over 12 months is not unreasonable for that peace of mind.

Antivirus and Firewall can work better together.
Free Software only covers Antivirus, not always Malware but ive not seen them with Firewall protection enabled.

It boils down to how important you content is to you and privacy.

and windows firewall

Had three calls this week from so called World windows saying had a problem with my computer,when confronted they hung up,so just advising if you get the call its an obvious scam.Thought I would flag up just incase.