Returned email and virus warnings

for messages you never sent

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A division of PC Mobile, Inc.

Many e-mail users are receiving notices of returned mails indicating that virus-infected and other mail was sent from their e-mail account. PC Mobile has received many questions about this issue, especially because the returned e-mails were originally sent to addresses that the respective users do not recognize. In most instances, these e-mails are being generated by other peoples' virus-infected computers using forged e-mail addresses, so there is no cause for concern.

There are a number of viruses floating around that propagate by sending mail from an infected Windows computer. The virus sends mail that purports to be from a random e-mail address selected from the infected computer's address book -- Sobig.F is the most recent virus that has been spreading rapidly by using this method. If you are receiving returned mail from e-mail addresses that are not familiar to you and that are not in your address book, someone you know likely has an infected computer that is sending e-mails with your e-mail address as the return address. This is known as forged e-mail and it explains why the e-mails are getting bounced back to you instead of the real sender.

Unfortunately, there is no easy solution for virus-borne forged e-mail short of encouraging your Windows-using friends to update their anti-virus definitions and run full scans on their computers as soon as possible. As always, all users should do the same for their own computers to be safe. If this note describes your situation accurately, your virus definitions are up to date and a virus-scan reveals no viruses, just delete these mails and continue working normally. Though the current volume of infected e-mail and subsequent returned mails is very high, we expect this particular virus to subside as computers eventually gain the proper virus protection and the virus is eventually contained.

Please note that mail4family.com is also running anti-virus scanning on all mail, so we should catch any real viruses if they come to or from any account.