Question - Emails - Viruses

[MethodMan]

Hi

I have one question regarding emails and viruses. I received an email from a friend I know, but dont usually get emails from. If he does send them, they are usually forwards. One contained the titile 'I Love you' and the other was 'Hello'.

I didnt open the I Love you email, however, I did open the one entitled Hello. It contained a screen saver, which I didnt download.

Here is my question. Using web based emails, can you get a virus from just opening the email?, or is it more of a concern for those you use outlook, and programs like that?

Thanks

[Fordy]

Originally posted by MethodMan
Hi

I have one question regarding emails and viruses. I received an email from a friend I know, but dont usually get emails from. If he does send them, they are usually forwards. One contained the titile 'I Love you' and the other was 'Hello'.

I didnt open the I Love you email, however, I did open the one entitled Hello. It contained a screen saver, which I didnt download.

Here is my question. Using web based emails, can you get a virus from just opening the email?, or is it more of a concern for those you use outlook, and programs like that?

Thanks

Using web-based email (IE Yahoo) should be pretty safe as long as you dont run the attachment...The main webmail sites are pretty good with virus scanners

Outlook can have problems (most of which are closed as soon as they are found) with just opening infected emails.....one such attack (I wont go into specific detail) involved HTML in the main email which created an IFrame...this IFrame then connected to an attachment in the same email...that attachment had a specific MIME type that at that time was not opened by an app, but was just executed........so as that attachment was an exe or vbs file - boom!! infected.......This method of spreading viruses is quite old, and doesnt normally work anymore...

Still you should be carefull.....I use either opera email client, or go direct to the yahoo web-mail site...

[ammar]

If you are using web-based e-mail...
As long as you don't run the attachment, there is not problem.