How does email virus works? It will create a file of its own n spread around?

Question

my outlook is infected by virus. I would like to know how does email virus works.
1 will email virus create its own content and spread around?
or
2it will spread only my existing mail?
or
3it will spread all my existing and delected mails
or worse still
4 it will go to my PC(my document and so on) to send mail and attachment to all people?
so which is correct? pls help. tks.

Answer 1

Your question cannot be answered. What the virus will do depends very much on what it does - which can be any of the above or something else. In other words, without you telling us which virus it is, we can't tell you what it will do.

For starters, it's not your Outlook that is infected - it is your computer.

Now, viruses that infect existing e-mails are rare - although they do exist. Most of the time, an e-mail virus either sends messages on its own, or responds to the messages you receive (or have received). It can do this by using Outlook - but that's rare nowadays, because the contemporary versions of Outlook have protections against being used automatically to send many messages. So, nowadays e-mail viruses usually carry their own e-mail engines and send e-mail themselves, without the help of your existing e-mail client.

The sent e-mails usually have an attachment containing the virus - but, again, this is just one possibility (admittedly - the most common one). There are script viruses which insert themselves in the body of the HTML e-mail they send, so that just viewing the e-mail can, in some cases, activate the virus. There are viruses which reside on some Web server and send in the e-mails only URLs pointing to that server.

So, back to your question, #4 is what is the most likely to happen - but any of the others (and any of the other possibilities I've listed above) can happen too. What exactly will happen depends on which particular virus it is and what exactly it does.

Answer 2

The short answer is yes, because Yahoo does some virus scanning for you. You should be aware of how viruses spread, however, so you won't get infected by a new virus that yahoo doesn't know about yet. Many viruses (virii) spread by emailing themselves to everyone in the infected computer's address book. You get an email from a friend saying something like "look at this cool picture" or "here's the info you wanted". When you click on it, instead of showing you a picture, it runs a program to infect your computer. Antivirus programs have files that identify the characteristics of a particular virus, so they can recognize them when they see them. Unfortunately, new viruses are written every day and usually manage to infect a few computers before the antivirus programs catch up. Yahoo protects you from known viruses; it can't protect you from one that hasn't been seen before unless it resembles one it already knows. Nothing is 100% foolproof...

Answer 3

depending on the type of virus it could do any of the below methods:
1: self replicate and infect other files
2: mail itself to everyone on your address book
3: In some cases open itself to infect you
4: download and install other software or virus/trojan
It really depends virii get better programming all the time. It's a fairly good idea to have a virus scanner with a good hercustic scanner that will try to attempt to catch a virus that is unknown. Now this isn't fool proof but it can help.

Answer 4

All whatever you mentioned in the details are correct. Note that viruses can damage your system in many ways, from "spilling the beans" to irreversible system changes. As new viruses are created day by day, there are many ways that viruses can act.

Viruses is actually not an object that eats the wires or chips in the CPU (there are some people who still thinks that way). Viruses are programs that execute a dangerous function. They are silent killers; what I mean is that viruses can be not obvious sometimes, and they do harmful things to your system without your consent.

So how does email virus works? Here's how. When you open the attachment, the virus will be installed somewhere in your system that you don't know. Thereafter, they can leak into your personal information or other files when you open and write them down. It was like someone spying your things, and then they write notes, and then send back to their master to see.

So when they got as many personal information as you have, they may send it to other hackers, and you will get even more junk mails (or spam). These other hackers may be even smarter, and they will create even worse viruses and send it to you by email, which is usually a phising one, or spam. Then your system will have a higher concentration of viruses.

Here are some free downloads to protect your computer to the max. level:
1. AVG Free at http://free.grisoft.com/doc/avg-anti-virus-free/lng/us/tpl/v5
2. ZoneAlarm at http://www.download.com/ZoneAlarm/3000-10435_4-10550364.html?tag=lst-0-3
3. Windows Live OneCare Safety Scanner at http://safety.live.com. (optional if you want to tune up your PC; meaning to boost your performance by clearing out junk sytem files and removing invalid registries in your system)

Answer 5

E-Mail Attachments: Email attachments are the most common way that ill intentioned people transmit viruses in order to infect computer users. Therefore, you should always apply caution when opening any E-Mail attachments received, especially from people who you do not know. These types of viruses are usually triggered when the attached file is opened or executed. Some viruses can even trigger themselves just by simply viewing the infected E-Mail although this is not that common. Therefore, ensure that the Anti-Virus Software you are using is set to monitor your E-Mail Program that you send and receive E-Mail with. Today’s modern software programs are usually set by default to do this.

Answer 6

yes, you are correct. Many hours are wasted due to spam email. However, by taking simple precautions while giving out your email and installing updated free software, you can prevent spam. More info available at
http://fixit.in/stopspam.html