A vast, hole in security

[Théière]

[quote user="Chancer"]

As you know I couldnt even be described as ignorant when it comes to computers but how can an anti-virus be expected to detect a spam e-mail when your E-mail provider has passed it?

Think about it, if you allow mail from unknown senders what is to stop me sending you one (apart from not knowing your address) and saying I thought you might find this link funny?

If you then clicked on the link which took you to a dodgy site which tries to infect your computer surely then is the time for your anti-virus to do its job?

As I said I really dont know about computers so please correct me if I am wrong but in the above example surely the failing would be on the part of the person clicking the link or opening the file attachment rather than the anti-virus?

[/quote]

Sorry Ernie, my post read badly, I meant in response to Chancer's comment above.

"Presumably Avast did nothing yesterday because you did nothing with the message, when you did though it flagged it, a reasonably appropriate action I'd say.

It's the same with an infected executable, unless you have your AV set to to automatically scan all downloads it will not respond to a threat until you either manually scan the file it or try to run it".

I can't agree, Avast like most other AV will inform if a message arrives with a virus or simply inform you it has destroyed the email as it has a virus. Avast just slept through it again. It picked it up when I forwarded it but by then my PC could be corrupted and my data read. I have received the stock reply from Avast so have asked them again.

[marcardis]

Following my last reply to you and your subsequent PM - your problems are caused by opening attachments.

Even if you received an email with a virus in an attachment, your pc could not be corrupted and data read unless you opened the attachment.

I feel that you are labouring the point here and should take the advice that other people are giving you.

You seem to have a problem with Avast - for most people it works well.

Buy a copy of Mailwasher, http://www.firetrust.com/products/mailwasher-pro, and you can then read all your incoming emails on your ISP's server before they ever reach your pc.

Regards,

Marcardis

[Théière]

[quote user="nounours"]

With the E-mail scanners on SFR, orange and AVG 9, messages with viruses don't even get to your inbox, you get a message saying that a message was received containing a virus and it has been deleted.

[/quote]

So it's not my imagination, I remember how AVG blocked email virus.

"Following my last reply to you and your subsequent PM - your problems are caused by opening attachments. AV is supposed to scan email, That's what Avast states in its information, that is one of its major roles. Ernie's company seem to have kicked it out without any trouble.

Even if you received an email with a virus in an attachment, your pc could not be corrupted and data read unless you opened the attachment. My point was, if it can find the virus attachment on forwarding it should be able to find it on receiving.

I feel that you are labouring the point here and should take the advice that other people are giving you. I am entitled to post on the forum, especially to draw attention to a security risk as many people have switched to Avast as it was discussed before you joined the forum.  So far no one has given any advice, except adding mail washer which you may need because Avast does not seem protect you. From my two deep scans carried post attack Avast missed all but one of the threats. 

You seem to have a problem with Avast - for most people it works well". Nounours doesn't agree and neither do I, and who are most people?What real evidence do you have to back up your support for Avast?

Define works well, it doesn't slow the PC as much as AVG and is a good AV, providing you don't get an email with a virus?

The on access scanner says it scans email, it obviously doesn't scan them very well. On forwarding to the email (unopened) to Ernie (Another) it did indeed warn of a virus attached. If it were really good it would warn when it received the email.

Deleting Avast labouring no point no more.

[Mr Coeur de Lion]

I've had a nasty little trojan on my computer the past few days that I've struggled to get rid of. Then I remembered this thread and downloaded Microsoft Security Essentials. Did a deep scan and it got rid of the trojan that had been giving me problems as well as a few other nasties that slipped through the net.

Can't remember the trojans name, but avast would complain about it every 10 minutes and it seemed to attach itself to svhost in a temp folder. Then when in google search, I'd click a search result that would always take me to some sort of shopping page other than the site I wanted.

Tried Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware, Adaware, spybot as well as boot time scan using avast, and nothing could remove it.

Then I downloaded MSE which got rid of the sucker after a 4 hour scan. Very impressive.

[AnOther]

[quote user="marcardis"]Buy a copy of Mailwasher, http://www.firetrust.com/products/mailwasher-pro, and you can then read all your incoming emails on your ISP's server before they ever reach your pc[/quote]You don't have to buy anything to check your email on your providers server. Just go to www.mai2web.com

Your email never arrived Théière which is surprising as even on the rare occasion that the server does block something it always sends me a notification or delivers the body of the messaage with suspicious attachments stripped out.

No matter though, the point is indeed being laboured [;-)]

[Quillan]

[quote user="marcardis"]
Buy a copy of Mailwasher, http://www.firetrust.com/products/mailwasher-pro, and you can then read all your incoming emails on your ISP's server before they ever reach your pc.

[/quote]

I don't have anything to add to this argument/debate about a particular AV program but I did want to clear one thing up, namely the above comment.

I use this product. The ability to read your emails on the server is not what this product is about, its about Spam. True it does allow you to see the contents of the emails on the server but that's only to help you make adjustments to its Spam handling abilities.

I bought this product because the Orange Spam handling (I don't know about others) is pretty poor in that it sticks suspect Spam in a folder and does not tell you unless you view your emails via a browser (you see the number of emails in the Spam folder as number next to it). As I have multiple accounts I use Outlook so I would never know that it had intercepted Spam and I have had personal emails placed in the Spam folder by mistake. I have therefore turned off the Spam handling facility in Orange and use Mailwasher instead.

Mailwasher does have some AV capability but it is limited and as the company says its always best to have a purpose written AV software on your machine.

What this product does do is rely on a couple of industry standard spam databases plus it 'learns' automatically and can be adjusted manually. The type of email the OP had and opened has been around for a couple of years hence its picked up as Spam and deleted by Mailwasher on the server before it even gets to your PC. We all know the pitfalls of these type of emails and to be honest I think people are pretty stupid not to delete them straight away let alone actually open them. As the old saying goes "a poor craftsman always blames his/her tools".