Software that detects pc viruses?

B

bookem

danno
Is there any that does? A friend has been forwarding emails to an unsuspecting pc user. The pc is now infected and the source appears to be the emails from the mac user.
 
Norton,s Virex, etc. These will detect any viruses as long as the programs are up to date.
 
bookem said:
The user had Norton v9 installed, which hasn't detected them.
Click to expand...
Having Norton v9 installed does not mean the virus signatures were up to date. Virus signatures should be updated a minimum of once a month -- some business update their virus signatures daily.

Another, perhaps more pertinent, question is did the infected mail actually come from the Mac or did it just appear as if it had come from your friend? Some viruses are very very good at doing that.

BobW did not mention Intego's Virus Barrier as a third antivirus option for the Mac.
 
The virus defs were up to date. THe messages that were infected were the ones forwarded from Mail on the Mac.
 
have you checked if they are still in the sent msg folder? check if there are some files with .cpl, .zip, .pif extension...
 
And of course, viruses always nail a few unlucky people even WITH "up to date" antivirus software. Norton, McAfee et al. have to know about the virus before they can add it to their virus defs.
 
You've managed to overlook the most important part of what Bookem told us ... "The pc is now infected and the source appears to be the emails from the mac user."

Many common PC viruses circulating today use what is called "email spoofing". When the virus infects a PC, it harvests email addresses and starts sending itself out. Each copy of itself that it sends out has a fake sender address picked more or less randomly from the email addresses it has harvested.
This means if you recieve a virus generated email that appears to be the emails from the mac user then it most likely hasn't come from that user after all, but from a virus infected PC.

And yes, all the current Mac anti-virus software recognises viruses from all platforms, however that won't help if the virus had never come into contact with the Mac anyway!
 
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