AVG Free Editoin missed PayPal virus!

J

John Blaustein

I installed AVG Free Edition a couple of days ago. Today, I received two
copies of the www.PayPal.com.scr e-mail virus. AVG did not catch the virus
when the e-mail arrived, and it did not find it when I ran a complete scan!
It did find it, however, when I saved the .scr file to my HD.

Norton AntiVirus catches this virus every time when the incoming e-mail
arrives.

I was feeling good about AVG until now. It can't be safe to have an e-mail
virus make it that far into my system before it gets detected.

John
 
S

ss_spa

I was feeling good about AVG until now. It can't be safe to have an e-mail
virus make it that far into my system before it gets detected.

Why not?
Unless you click on it, it can do no harm. It can sit on your computer
for the next two years and not do anything.


tim
 
J

John Blaustein

I guess I've just been used to Norton AntiVirus catching viruses as they
arrive via e-mail. You are right, of course, about them not doing anything
if I don't try to run them. AVG is catching them when I save to disk or try
to run them. This may be a matter of my just having to adjust my thinking.
I like that AVG is so small and simple.

John
 
B

Ben Myers

If you are using Outlook Express, click "Tools" and see if you have "AVG
Menu". If so, select it, then "AVG Mail Settings", "Incoming Mail" and
make sure that "Scan incoming mail for viruses" is selected.

Ben
 
J

John Blaustein

Ben,

I am using OE 6.0. I do not have the AVG menu under Tools because I do not
have the "Use Outlook Express 5 plug-in" box checked in the AVG Control
Center. The reason that is not checked is that when it's on, my Toolbar
disappears every time OE is closed and reopened. That's a real nuisance.
In the Control Center, however, in the E-mail Scanner tab, I have checks
next to Check Incoming Messages and Check Outgoing Messages. In Advanced
Settings, those boxes are also checked.

I seem to be getting two copies of the PayPal virus every day, so I may try
checking the "Use OE 5 plug-in" tomorrow and see if AVG then catches the
PayPal virus. As someone else pointed out, AVG is catching the virus when I
try to save the PayPal attachment. I have not tried running the attachment,
however.

It may be that with OE, the "Use OE 5 plug-in" must be checked in order for
AVG to scan e-mail as it arrives. If that's the case, I'm kind of stuck
since I can't use the plug-in with its habit of closing the Toolbar every
time OE is closed and reopened.

John


If you are using Outlook Express, click "Tools" and see if you have "AVG
Menu". If so, select it, then "AVG Mail Settings", "Incoming Mail" and
make sure that "Scan incoming mail for viruses" is selected.

Ben
 
K

kurt wismer

John said:
I installed AVG Free Edition a couple of days ago. Today, I received two
copies of the www.PayPal.com.scr e-mail virus. AVG did not catch the virus
when the e-mail arrived, and it did not find it when I ran a complete scan!
It did find it, however, when I saved the .scr file to my HD.

Norton AntiVirus catches this virus every time when the incoming e-mail
arrives.

I was feeling good about AVG until now. It can't be safe to have an e-mail
virus make it that far into my system before it gets detected.

sure it can... it needs to get 'far enough into your system' to execute
in order to be a threat, and it didn't get that far, did it...
 
M

muffster

I have norton antivirus as well as the free edition of AVG.

recently I have been getting numerous emails that say they are undeliverable
but I did not send these emails. I had a notice a week ago about a backdoor
Trojan virus and to run AVG , for some reason norton did not at first pick
it up and when it did it just notified it was there but did not attempt to
repair or quaranteen. AVG identified the file but when I tried to run norton
it couldn't open file .

I ran AVG.

At this point I was not sure what to do so I deleted the file and emptied
the trash. I have not recieved anymore warnings about the backdoor trojan
virus, but keep getting these undeliverable messages returned that I never
sent out.

Is there some sort of virus on my computer and if so how do I remove it?

Keith
 
J

John Blaustein

kurt wismer said:
John Blaustein wrote:

sure it can... it needs to get 'far enough into your system' to execute
in order to be a threat, and it didn't get that far, did it...

No, it didn't. Your point is well taken. I've been used to NAV and the way
it works, but I'm now adjusting to the way AVG works. I like it's simple
interface. I'm still now quite clear about why it has all those e-mail
settings yet doesn't really scan incoming e-mail -- at least not in OE 6.
Perhaps the e-mail scanning is looking for viruses that aren't in
attachments.

John
 
N

Netuser 58

John Blaustein wrote:

I seem to be getting two copies of the PayPal virus every day,

Can you see the FULL headers on them to see where they are coming from?
This can be the fastest way to stop these - report the headers to
Paypal on their website in the section marked "security center" on the
home page.On the next page select "report a problem" then select "fraud"

Netuser 58
 
J

John Blaustein

Nutuser 58,

Yes, I've done this. PayPal and eBay both have e-mail addresses to
send/forward this stuff to:
(e-mail address removed)
(e-mail address removed)

John
 

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