Forum Home
PC World Chat
 
Thread ID: 63645 2005-11-17 18:43:00 Anyone else getting viruses through Paradise? Strommer (42) PC World Chat
Post ID Timestamp Content User
405104 2005-11-17 18:43:00 For the last week I have been getting 2 - 4 bogus emails through my ISP, Paradise. I have forwarded these emails to the "missedspam" paradise email address, but the emails still come every day.

The emails all have a small zip file attachment, usually with names like "password" or "pics". The size of these is "zero" according to my email platform (Pegasus Mail). The Subject Line is either nothing at all, or Postmaster or Delivery Problems or other lame name for a bogus email. Today's email content was "Osama Bin Laden Captured" and the other email said "I was going through my album, and look what I found.."

Of course I never open the zip files. Antivirus (Avast) and Spyware (Adaware, Spybot) show nothing suspicious.

Is anyone else having problems like this?

I'm hacked off with Paradise for letting this junk get through.
Strommer (42)
405105 2005-11-17 19:09:00 Do you actually have virus protection enabled on your mailbox? You can do that through www.paradise.net.nz, logging into the members section and going to settings. pixeldust (6619)
405106 2005-11-17 19:15:00 Paradise may have stripped the virus from the email and are just sending you the shell or notification of a virus that may have been sent to you. Rob99 (151)
405107 2005-11-17 19:32:00 Do you actually have virus protection enabled on your mailbox? You can do that through www.paradise.net.nz, logging into the members section and going to settings.

Yes, I just checked and the virus and spam settings are activated.
Strommer (42)
405108 2005-11-17 19:40:00 Paradise may have stripped the virus from the email and are just sending you the shell or notification of a virus that may have been sent to you.

This occurred to me, but I think if they did strip the virus from the email, there is a notification from Paradise that this was in fact done. Not 100% sure about this but I seem to recall this happened earlier this year (the words "Bright Technology" may have been in the 'stripped email notification'.

The zip files are actually 15 bytes in size (checking the file outside of the mail platform), but I think this is not large enough to amount to anything other than the file name itself.

Since I changed my email address over 2 years ago, I have had only 2 or 3 bits of junk mail (before this last week). Somehow I must have given my email address to a "trusted" [ha ha] company. Almost always I use a throw-away email account for such matters but I have a vague memory that recently I thought "certainly this company will be safe". Anyhow, I just wish Paradise would filter out these bogus emails.
Strommer (42)
405109 2005-11-17 19:45:00 The easiest method may be a phone call 0800 467 272 Rob99 (151)
405110 2005-11-17 20:18:00 The easiest method may be a phone call 0800 467 272

I did this two days ago and they just told me to keep forwarding the emails to the "missedspam" address.
Strommer (42)
405111 2005-11-17 20:23:00 No virus scanner or spam filter is going to catch everything. In spite of what every customer seems to believe, spam filtering is not a straight forward simple process.

Chances are someone with your address in their address book is infected with something, probable an inactive form og Bagle or similar.

It's sending benign messages which aren't tripping the virus scanner, and aren't spammy enough to trip the spam filter. So they get delivered. Simple really.
ninja (1671)
405112 2005-11-18 04:58:00 Spampal does a pretty good job, and Poptray may too, with dealing with spam.

Both are free, and both can also blacklist a whole isp / domain known for spamming.

Like with spampal, today I got 17 emails - 16 were spam, and got deleted from the server before I got them. 1 was valid. And came through.

And the other day 20 out fo 20 were spam , and were deleted before I got them. A good hit rate.
Speedy Gonzales (78)
405113 2005-11-18 08:12:00 use Pegasus it has a feature I just love selective mail download, you can even delete the beasties at server level. no need for mailwasher or spampal (btw both are good programs). beama (111)
1 2