scan e-mail for virus

[tomron]

Heres a tip from Grif thomas of cnet for scanning e-mail and attachments for viruses.

In Outlook Express, or Outlook, turn off the "Preview Pane" which can cause viruses to run automatically at preview. Next, create a special folder on your desktop for scanning potentially infected messages. (I've created one specially for the purpose called "Virus Stuff") Next, with Outlook Express/Outlook open, and before trying to open any messages, click once on the first message line to highlight it, then click on "File" in the upper left, choose "Save As" from the menu. When the "Save As" box loads, in the "Save In" line, use the drop down menu to navigate to the desktop "Virus Stuff" folder. Next, look to the "Save As Type" line in the lower section of the window and make sure it says: "Mail (.eml)" (or “Message Format *.msg in Outlook), then click on the "Save" button. After the messages have been saved to the "Virus Stuff" folder, RIGHT click directly on the folder, choose "Scan for Viruses", then let your antivirus do its stuff. If there are any infected HTML messages, they will be found BEFORE you try to open them. Delete any infected message from the Virus Stuff folder AND from Outlook Express/Outlook. Next, while still in the “Virus Stuff” folder, you need to also open each message by double clicking on it, and save each attachment to the same “Virus Stuff” folder. This is done for a “second” check of the attachments. Some antivirus scanners don’t do a “perfect” job of scanning attachments within the .eml/.msg message files. After all the attachments are separated out from the messages, close the folder, then RIGHT click on the folder, choose “Scan For Viruses” again. This will detect any infections that could be remaining undetected in the attachments themselves. Once again, delete any infected files from the “Virus Stuff” folder AND from Outlook Express/Outlook. When you decide to open the files, open the “Virus Stuff" folder, double click on the messages and they will opened using Outlook Express/Outlook. After you're done viewing them delete them from the "Virus Stuff" folder (its empty for the next usage) and you can then go back to the main Outlook Express/Outlook program and remove any unwanted/infected messages and save those that you want to keep BEFORE you’ve tried to open them.

Tom

[Samantha]

I use the program I found in one of the articles on the she-geeks main site. It's called Returnil and works just fine for me. After a reboot it kills all viruses or keyloggers that I may have got online somehow. I started using it after Jewels helped me look over my hijack this logs.

[Jewels]

Glad ur still finding it useful Samantha.

Nice tip tomron for those using outlook. Personally I prefer to keep all my email online as opposed to using outlook/thunderbird etc. as my machines are clogged up enough as it is! LOL

[swytch]

There is also the option of using an email client with "real time" scanning abilities.  There are various anti-virus programs out there but one I have used regularly for years now, if AVG Anti-virus.  Good news, too... there is a FREE version available to everyone.  It takes a little digging to find it on their website but I'll include a direct link:
http://free.avg.com/

If you employ "real time" scanning, many times you can avoid exporting the email and/or attachment for manual scans.  Users are always better safe than sorry so I encourage using either the method Tomron suggested or making sure "real time" scanning in in place on your machine.  Use the method most comfortable to you.
 

[tomron]

I've used AVG for AV and AS for years and had no complaints.I believe the new versions had some issues which I'm quite sure are resolved now.I now have Avira for AV and super anti spyware and  I won super anti spyware in castle cops.

Please don't misconstrue,I still think AVG is a good product Its just that I wanted a change.For some reason I tend to gravitate towards the freebies. 

I also read that Avast is a good product which also offers a freebie.

Over in this thread theres a link for the best freebies,or so called best.

fraggle also provided a good link for anti-malware

http://she-geeks.com/forum/computer-security/anti-malware-toolkit-1-03-125/