I am looking for some serious help here. I have ran hijack this, cwshredder, adware, spybot and cleaned whatever they found. I ran trend-micro scan yesterday and found 32 trojans on my machine. I cleaned those off as directed by trend micro. The problem now is, I get emails everyday with virus attachments. What can I do? What options do I have? Is there a program out there that will get me back to normal here? Just looking for some help on these emails. Thanks

I receive on average 20 virus infected emails a day... even though I have never had an infection on my machine. There are peoepl out there who have no Antivirus programs, no firewalls, no spyware removers, no trojan scanners... they are the ones that are sending the virus infected emails to you. As long as your antivirus program picks these off, you should be fine. As a precaution... Read and follow this sound advice Netsquirrel Tank863

I am not very educated on these matters, but I want to know how this emails find their way into my email address? Why am I getting these emails from people or addresses I have never seen or know of? Is there a simple way to fix this problem? All I read here is the hundreds of websites and downloads and so on to "fix" my computer. All I want is a simple, step by step solution to get my computer back to normal and when I get it fixed, what simple way is there for me to ensure that my system is not getting hit again? If I am getting these emails from people I do not know, am I sending something out there for them to pick up? I try not to do things that cause trouble with my computer because I am iliterate to this stuff. Unfortunatly, I have gotten emails in the past from friends of mine that have attachments that open up into places like r, porn sites or some other place like these that have things my friends find amusing. Is this what happens? Does opening emails from friends I know that have attachments to these sites pollute my computer? Just looking for some help. Maybe after I get my computer fixed, I'll cut the cord on my internet connection and start writing snail mail again, lol. Thanks for the help.

What can happen... and what does happen... You were infected with a virus.. it copied your address book and sent emails to those people.. or just phoned home and added those email address to a database for future attacks. Someone that has you listed in their email address book was infected, and your email addressw as added to the 'list'. Now, when the virus looks to a machine that is vunerable and has its virus.. it is sending the virus from someone else to your email address... or from your email address to someone else.. using the infected machine.. You say that you cleaned your machine... and it no longer is infected... that is good. Now sure up your defenses. I have a game plan that I use for clients.. it always changes and I add to it.. remove from it... and everyone here may or may not agree with it. But this is what I tell people to do. (1) Disable your system restore To turn off Windows XP System Restore 1. Click Start > Programs > Accessories > Windows Explorer 2. Right-click My Computer, and then click Properties. 3. Click the System Restore tab. 4. Check the "Turn off System Restore" or "Turn off System Restore on all drives" check box as shown in this illustration: 5. Click Apply. The following message appears: 6. As noted in the message, this will delete all existing restore points. Click Yes to do this. 7. Click OK. 8. Proceed with what you need to do. For example, removing viruses. Restart the computer and follow the instructions in the next section to turn on System Restore. (2) Now you need to scan for the virus again. I recommend shutting down and restarting in safe mode first and then scanning your system.. but you don't need to do that. If you don't have an antivirus program.. ther are several free ones that are very good. AVG & avast! are excellent examples of good antivirus programs that are free. http://www.grisoft.com :: or :: http://www.avast.com (3) After the system was scanned and cleaned, I would advise you to update your AV software and rescan the system again. (4) Download a free program called swat-it from http://swatit.org it is a free trojan scanner. It will scan yuor system for just trojan based infections. I prefer a program called Trojan Hunter from http://www.misec.net/trojanhunter/ but it is not free. (5) Download and run a free program called Spybot search and destroy. This will get rid of all spyware and crap on your system. It can be downloaded from http://www.safer-networking.org/ (6) Download a free program called AdAware from Lavasoft, it does many of the same things that spybot does, but may catch some different crap.. it can be downloaded at http://www.lavasoftusa.com/ (7) If you don't have a firewall installed, I suggest that you get one. You can download a free firewall from http://zonelabs.com There are several good firewalls out there and opinions differ on which one to use. (8) I also recommend downloading a program called Finjan surfin guard pro.. it is not free, it sells for around 35.00.. This will catch anything new that may come out.. it can be found at http://www.finjan.com/ (9) To get rid of the crap that Internet Explorer keeps track of, download a free program called CleanUp by Steven Gould.. you can get it from here: http://users3.ev1.net/~stevengould/cleanup/ (10) After all is said and done... I would run a scandisk/chkdisk on my system... Run SCANDISK/CHKDSK. Scandisk is used to check the file system for any problems. This utility is found on Window 95, 98 and ME systems. On Windows NT, 2000, and XP you can use Chkdsk. The ScanDisk utility is located here...Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > ScanDisk. Chkdsk can be run by running a command prompt, then typing in 'chkdsk' and the drive letter... for example ' chkdsk c: '. This will check the drive in readonly mode, to fix any errors add a ' /f ' to the end, and then reboot. (chkdsk c:/f) (11) After you complete scandisk.chkdsk, run defrag... To Defrag your hard disks: Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Defragmenter. The way it works is that it reduces the number of file fragments on the hard disk, placing all the parts of a single file in one area, perhaps next to each other. The disk then does not need to 'jump' all round the file system to read one file. If your hard drives are very fragmented, you will really notice a huge difference after you defrag – your computer will run faster! (12) Get any updates to your Operating System. Go to http://www.windowsupdate.com/. It will search your system and let you know of all the updates that are available. Download and install them! Do this monthly to ensure you have all the latest security patches from Microsoft. (13) Turn your system restore back on.... To enable Windows Me System Restore 1. Click Start > Settings > Control Panel. 2. Double-click System. 3. On the Performance tab click File System. 4. On the Troubleshooting tab, uncheck Disable System Restore. 5. Click OK. Click Yes, when you are prompted to restart Windows. To turn on Windows XP System Restore 1. Click Start. 2. Right-click My Computer, and then click Properties. 3. Click the System Restore tab. 4. Uncheck the "Turn off System Restore" or "Turn off System Restore on all drives" check box. 5. Click Apply, and then click OK. Your system should be cleaned by now... if you still have problems.. run Hijack this and post your log. I have several more steps that I take on my personal system which has never been infected... I use iespyaed on my children system.. I have a hardware firewall installed on my network for added protection. I use PCBugDoctor and spywareblaster.. Just think layers of protection are better. Tank863 What the heck is: Tankweb.net

1) there is no way to prevent people sending you emails. mcafee or similar products will scan them for problems. 2) don't open attachments unless you are expecting one AND it has been scanned by Mcafee or similar.