Monday, March 17, 2008

Is That eMail Attachment Infected?

For Windows 9.xx to Windows XP/Vista & MAC Tip # 0014

An eMail arrives with an attachment. With all the cautions and warnings you have received, you are aware that perhaps that eMail with an attachment you just received might contain a virus or spy-ware. What do you do? Well, the standard suggestion is just delete anything from anyone you don’t know. That is not always necessary or even a good idea.
And sometimes a virus can arrive from someone you do know. If you have a good deal of traffic as I do, I also receive mails from people who I might not know but in fact the attachment is something that may be useful, of interest, even important. Is there any way to scan an eMail attachment before you open it?
The answer I am pleased to report is Yes. In fact there is an easy way to find out if it is safe or not.
Here is a simple way to scan any attachment (limit 10MB) and insure it will not do any harm to your computer:
1. Forward that email message with the file attachment intact to scan@virustotal.com
2. Write SCAN in the Subject field of the forwarded message and delete the full body of the message. Now, hit “Send”.
3. You should receive a virus report in your in-box very shortly.
Within a few minutes you will receive a report from the nice people at Virustotal.com and it will tell you whether there is any virus or Trojan hiding in the attachment. In my tests it took less than 5 minutes with the usual response time being around 2 minutes.
As long as the report comes back with “nothing found” from each service, you can now open the attachment without concern.
One nifty aspect of the service is it passes your attachment through most all of the best anti-virus programmes including AVG, F-Secure, Norton, McAfee, Panda, Avast and Microsoft to name a few.
This is a handy effective tool. It is particularly useful if you are using dial-up.
Suppose though, you have already downloaded a file to your hard drive which you are not sure about. Not a problem. Simply go to the following URL: http://www.virustotal.com/.
You will see their main page and in the middle you will see “Upload a file”. Below you will see “Browse”. Click on browse and chose the file from the location on your hard drive. The Virus Total programme with then upload your programme to their site. You will be notified how many people are in front of you and an approximate time you will have to wait. Then your file will be filtered through 32 individual virus and Trojan detectors. Keep your browser open until the programme is finished.
[Note: this can take a while. Even with broadband it can take 10 through 15 minutes. I suggest if you are using dial up, you send the file (under 10 MB) as an eMail attachment.]
When the programme is finished you can see on the Virus Total page the status of your file. It will tell you if any of the programmes detected a problem. If not you will have a degree of certainty that all is well with this particular file. Remember there is no such thing as absolute security and there is always a remote chance that a new and undetected virus or Trojan may be present, but after this multiple scan I would say the chances are very remote. Personally I would be very comfortable opening a file after this scrutiny.
If one of more programmes does detect a virus or Trojan, then I suggest you immediately run a full virus scan using the anti-virus programme of your choice.
Of course the use of either or both of these utilities comes at my favourite price, nothing, zilch, nada, zippp; it is free.
Now, dear Bulldog readers, you may have heard the news. This will be the last print edition of the Daily Bulldog. Sad I know. The great news is The Daily Bulldog will be available from here on out on the web at: http://dailybulldog.com/.
I will still be writing my monthly column which will be available in the on-line version of the Daily Bulldog. It will also be available at the following site: http://bulldogtipstricks.blogspot.com/.
If you have not already done so, I suggest you use the ‘Favourites’ selection in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer or the “Bookmarks” selection in Firefox and save both The Daily Bulldog’s URL and the Tips and Tricks URL so they will both be readily and easily assessable.
I would like to thank all my readers over the past year or so, and especially the readers who have written to me either to thank me or with a computer problem. It has been a wonderful experience for me. Your questions and comments are important to me so I hope I shall be hearing more from you all in the coming year. It has been a privilege and a lot of fun serving you in print and I look forward to continuing to serve you on line.
In addition to my monthly column, I will be posting articles, virus warnings and tech suggestions as they come up. If there is anything tech you would like to know more about send me your suggestions.
See you on the web.
As always you can reach me at: guygriscom@gmail.com