Email Viruses

How much spam and virus checking do the ISPs and email suppliers like Gmail and Hotmail do?

Plusnet mark the source of my incoming emails to say that they have been scanned. I have not managed to find a similar marking on Gmail emails.

In a group of about 25 people who send emails to each other using CC. One person complained that this exposed the group to being attacked by mailbox viruses. They suggested that we should send blind copies using mail distribution lists.

Is this wise advise or paranoia?

I have received a couple of emails which appeared to have been generated by malware in the senders computer.

My ISP (Eclipse) scans emails. As I recall there's a user option to set the level, or even to turn it off.

Google scans all emails for keywords to help them target advertising.

It's always a good idea to use BCC when sending to a group of recipients so that not everyone's email addy gets propagated to everyone else, so as to lessen the chance of them getting out all over the Net to strangers or ending up in contact lists which viruses often attack.

I deplore the habit of many users to Reply to All when wanting to just answer the sender.

In reply to a post by cheshire_man:

My ISP (Eclipse) scans emails. As I recall there's a user option to set the level, or even to turn it off.

Thanks, it looks like Plusnet is the same. Gmail does scan for viruses and spam but does not appear to be user configurable.

I've been using Gmail I think almost since it first came out of Beta, and have never had a problem.

No, it doesn't stamp things to say they've been scanned, but spam and phishing seem to end up in the right folder, for the most part. It also learns from user reports. So if you receive a mail that resembles one lots of other users have flagged as "suspicious", you'll see a warning to be careful, because others didn't trust it.

Overall, I'd say I have more problems (but still not very frequent) with my valid mail being flagged as possible phishing or spam, than the other way round. In particular, dispatch notes from bona fide companies I've done business with, and subscription newsletters from charities I support sometimes seem to get flagged as "suspicious". I realise anything that is asking for money has to be treated with some caution, but I've occasionally been dismayed that mail from a reputable charity I've asked to be kept informed about is being flagged as "suspicious".

I suppose that is one of the pitfalls of the user reporting scheme. Just because an organisation solicits donations doesn't mean they are necessarily spammers or scammers.

When emailing a group, it is considered good email etiquette to always use BCC unless you have the explicit permission of each and every user to do otherwise.

Although many on your list gave you their email address so that you could keep them informed of a service or other information, they probably didn't sign up for their email to be shared with multiple others.

The point about their email address being exposed to malware/spam is a valid point regardless of who performs what/where scanning is done.
All it takes is one single person on that list to have malware on their machine and the potential for that persons mail directory/address book being lifted is increased and that email address in effect spoiled (as soon as it gets placed onto a spammers 'live' database).
A database of 'known' valid email addresses attracts a premium and malware still goes for scraping address books quite regularly .

Personally, I use 'throwaway' email addresses when in public view and keep private emails private and it reduces the amount of spam/malware massively. (I've also been involved in spam/malware fighting since the days when there was only 1 email server on the whole network although to be fair the first spam didn't official arrive until 1978, thanks DEC !! )

If you run a business and expose users email addresses, that's even worse IMHO, yet there is always someone on that list who probably will be grateful for a whole list of valid email addresses.

A quick Google for "email etiquette" will provide you good reasons for using the BCC and how to do so properly. (i.e. don't leave the To: field blank).

Regards

Chris

I think all ISPs check and block spam if only to reduce the stuff going through their servers. I have accounts with BT and with Yahoo which pass hardly any spam to my inbox, but when I check their spam folders on webmail they contain tons of c**p.

Please please avoid group mailings using CC. I made a donation to a charitable group and found my private address (by implication linked to my bank a/c) was passed by CC to more than 300 people. Some had malware ... you can guess the rest and cleaning up took weeks.

In reply to a post by Michael_Chare:

Is this wise advise or paranoia?

Wise advice, like not exposing email addresses in plain text Mailto: links on web pages. Mail software that does distribution lists with the ability to put customised reply and other fields is best.

You just don't want your email address in the wrong hands if it can be avoided.

Although I left Tiscali a very long time ago, I still use a few Tiscali email addreses for non-important stuff. Does anyone know if Talk-Talk, to whom Tiscali now belongs, scans Tiscali emails for virus etc?



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