# scan email for viruses before opening



## thampiverghese (Jun 1, 2001)

In web mail it says "scan email or attachment before opening.How do I do it with Trend PC-Cillin?In the help mnu it is talking only about scanning files.


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## Emtronics (Jan 20, 2000)

Well, if your antivirus is in the real time mode, then when you go to click on an attachment, it should ask you one of two things; to save to disk or to open this file. If you open the file and it is a virus, your A/V should catch it and warn you right there and then. You can save it to disk without opening it, then later, browse to the file and have your A/V scan it for virus'. You have to make sure your A/V is up to date with the latest updates.

Rule of thumb fo me....if I don't know the person sending the attachment, I delete it. People you know may not knowningly send you a virus. That's how "worms" spread. 

[Edited by Emtronics on 07-08-2001 at 11:25 PM]


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## thampiverghese (Jun 1, 2001)

Thanks,Emtronics.But if it is an E-Mail Joke forwarded the sender wouldn't know about the virus.


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## Emtronics (Jan 20, 2000)

True, but to get a virus via an e-mail you must open an attachment on the e-mail. You can not as of yet, get a virus simply reading an e-mail. The virus or worm will always be hidden in an attachment to the e-mail therefore, if you are not sure, if your A/V is not up to date, then do not open attachments on e-mails. People send virus' and worms to people they know all the time and they don't even know it. The KAK Worm virus is one example that attaches itself as a sig file in Outlook Express of the infected computer and goes out on ALL the mail without the person's knowledge. Bottom line, Get and keep it up to date a good anti virus program period.


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## Kento (Aug 2, 2000)

> ...but to get a virus via an e-mail you must open an attachment on the e-mail. You can not as of yet, get a virus simply reading an e-mail.


Actually that's not true. You can get infected simply by reading an email message. Worms like Wscript.kak and others are embedded in the message itself. They don't come as attatchments that you have to click to open. All you have to do to get infected is open the email to read it. But you can prevent that by disabling Windows Scripting Host. Disabling Windows Scripting Host will prevent the virus script from automatically executing when the message is opened.

[Edited by Kento on 07-09-2001 at 10:06 PM]


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## thampiverghese (Jun 1, 2001)

Thanks Kento.How do I disable the scripting host?


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## Kento (Aug 2, 2000)

Go to the link and either download the Noscript.exe file they have and then click on it (keep the file after using it, don't delete it) or follow the manual instructions shown there.

http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/win.script.hosting.html

By the way, disabling WSH *WILL NOT* prevent a virus script from executing when you manually click on an infected attatchment to open it. It only prevents virus scripts from running automatically. So always be cautious about opening attatchments.


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## Emtronics (Jan 20, 2000)

While I knew of "worms" via scripting, I should have mentioned that. I stand corrected.


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