What happens if I reply to an email that has a virus attached?

[seaglass]

At least 2-3 times a week I am getting an email from a person that I don't think I know with an attachment that has a virus. Norton's cleans the attachment before the email is downloaded locally.

I want to send this person a reply to tell him to stop sending this email to me. Or if it's being automatically sent from his distribution list to let him know that he has a virus.

Could this be some kind of trick?

[MessiahRp]

1. Good luck

Most of the virus spammers use software that masks their real e-mail address with a fake one so it's likely to get returned to you.

I don't doubt this will be the case for you as well as I also get the same virus e-mails in my inbox all the time.

Rp

[seaglass]

2. I didn't know if it was some kind of test to verify that my email

address was valid.

I get NO spam and I was just wondering why all of a sudden I was getting this. Unfortunately I have no way of blocking it.

[Aiptasia]

3. put him/her on your blocked senders list

MS Outlook has an option to add them to blocked senders list(s), as well as Norton A/V.

If Norton's is cleaning out the attachments as they download then I wouldn't worry too much. Also, responding to the email probably won't harm you, it's just opening the attachment that will screw things up.

[seaglass]

7. Thanks. I used to be able to block stuff directly with my old

ISP and verizon doesn't let me filter anything. I didn't realize I could do it through outlook.

[eataTREE]

4. It's likely that the return address is forged.

Most email viruses these days use the following algorithm:

1. Virus infects your computer, looks at your address book.
2. Virus grabs two addresses from your address book, and
3. Forges a message TO address #1, that appears to be FROM address #2.
4. The actual email address of the person whose computer is infected, appears nowhere in the message.

So yelling at the person who appears to be sending you the virus is futile, because it likely didn't have anything to do with them.

[seaglass]

5. Thanks. I wasn't going to yell at the person because I didn't

think they were intentionally sending me a virus.

[skygazer]

6. Your computer turns into a flesh eating zombie

And you have to shoot it in the hard drive. Very nasty.