Posted By Stephen J W Clegg. Yes I have had many! The way the virus works is that it gets into the outlook address book and sends a virus as an attachment to all the recipients within, when they receive it the same thing happens and the process starts again, and so on, and so on. I'm not to sure about the damage it causes to the system, but the best way to defeat the virus is to install some good quality, self updating scan 'n' ditch software that’ll delete the attachment should you open it in good faith. Another way is to simply delete the e-mail without opening it – which is problematic as the e-mail might be a genuine communication. They usually come with the 'subject' being on the lines of: "Thanks" "Erasure tickets" "Re:" "Your photos, letters, documents" etc. "ID badge" It's a difficult one. Have you e-mailed your IT department? (if you have one that is) Good luck!

Posted By Website Content Co-ordinator Any viruses that our discussion forum contributors may experience will not have been generated from our database. If emails are swapped between members then the virus can travel into your mailboxes via this route. Most companies are protected with internal firewalls, however, some home PC users may not be covered, hence viruses can spread. Another explanation may be spamming. There are many powerful crawlers on the Internet, therefore any published emails within threads may be exposed to spamming, I myself am subject to this quite often. One way you can ensure that you will not receive spam is to go into ‘My details’ and select for your email to NOT be viewed by others. This way no crawlers can pick up your email and other people will not be able to email you on your personal address without your prior permission. I hope this clears up any confusion. Kind regards Lou

Posted By Merv Newman Could the people who have received virii or spam from other members please give the names of the senders. In that way we will know if we are causing or have a problem ourselves. God, I hope it's not me.

Posted By Ken Taylor They usually only pretend to come from us, Merv. If you highlight the e-mail and click 'properties' and then 'details' you should see the true source and return path. In addition to having an up-to-date anti-virus programme and firewall, it's worth reading all e-mails first in Mailwasher or Mailwasher Pro which tells you whether they are 'spam', etc and allows you to delete them or bounce them back before they reach your Outlook Express, etc. It's also worth not displaying the preview panel as, if this is set to automatically download selected messages, you will have opened the offending item. To remove the preview panel in Outlook Express click 'View' and 'Layout' and then deselect 'Show preview panel'. I have had automatically rejected infected e-mails returned to me that I have never sent from people I have never heard of.