I've received an email with an attachment. The attachment is a .scr file. The interesting thing is that the sender of this file is my wife's nickname. Her nickname is part of her email address, but when I looked back at other emails she has sent me, her name and not her nick/email address comes up in the sender column. She did not send me this email. My issue is not whether or not this is a virus, (I'm just going to delete it without opening and forget about it) but I'm worried how this information seems so close to something/someone I'm familiar with. I keep my email secure and my computer spyware and virus free. How did a fake name so close to a real name end up in my inbox? Anyone have any idea? Thanks.

It's called Email spoofing. What happens is someone with a computer has a virus on the machine. This person just so happens to have both your wife's email and yours in his/her address book. The virus uses one address to send to another. The only way to determine for sure where the mail originated is to look at the header information of the mail you were sent.

Soo you might consider sending out a plain text e-mail warning, to scan their own system well, to everyone listed in your & your wife's Address book.

Someone is being used to spread a bug, worm, or trojan.

Just for info tho, scr pif cpl exe bat (and a few more executables I've forgotten) are virtually always a virus, unless you were expecting a file of this type in your email and knew all about it beforehand.

Derek.W

justaguy,

You say you keep your email secure.

How?

M2