# I got a virus. Anyone else get this one? What's its name? Is a virus scan enough? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 28, 2002, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-got-a-virus-anyone-else-get-this-one-whats-its-name-is-a-virus-scan-enough/106030 "2002-04-28T00:58:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Road\_Rash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a8b319/32.png) [@Road\_Rash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Road_Rash)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2002, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-got-a-virus-anyone-else-get-this-one-whats-its-name-is-a-virus-scan-enough/106030/1 "2002-04-28T00:58:30Z")
About 3 hours ago I checked my e-mail. 46 messages from the last time I checked, about 2 hours earlier. None of them were from anyone I knew, and some of them were pretty nasty, as if I had said something insulting. There was no text that confirmed anything, just a bunch of e-mail links, and some mention of domain names. I called my IP. They told me that was a virus going around, which reads your address book and then sends then e-mail. They told me that I would need to go to a computer shop to get it fixed. I called a friend of my dad’s, who is the oldest techie-mechanical nerd I know (kind of looks like the father of one of the nerds in the “Revenge of the Nerds” movie). A retired engineer who have been playing with home computers since they have had them. Well before Apple. He asked if I had a virus shield, which I do, MacAvee. He then said to run it. That should fix the problem, and that is what a computer shop would likely do as well. I did it. I checked my e-mail again. No disturbing messages, except for the “increase your cock size to scary proportions” and “get out of debt” variety. So I ask again all of the questions in my title. Plus, what else should I do? ---
**Author:** ![Tamex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ccd318/32.png) [@Tamex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamex)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2002, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-got-a-virus-anyone-else-get-this-one-whats-its-name-is-a-virus-scan-enough/106030/2 "2002-04-28T01:46:26Z")
Is the subject “You’re using my old e-mail address”? If it’s that, it’s not a virus. I’ve been getting those messages, too. It seems that someone signed up many of the e-mail addresses on the SDMB (or the TempSDMB) for some stupid mailing list, or something like that. There’s a thread about it in ATMB. I tried to unsubscribe and the message just bounced back to me. The messages seem to have stopped, though. ---
**Author:** ![evilhanz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ba8739/32.png) [@evilhanz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/evilhanz)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2002, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-got-a-virus-anyone-else-get-this-one-whats-its-name-is-a-virus-scan-enough/106030/3 "2002-04-28T03:23:05Z")
The thread you want is over [here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=111995). It’s nothing to get hysterical over. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Kentzel-Griffin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ccd318/32.png) [@John\_Kentzel-Griffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Kentzel-Griffin)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2002, 9:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-got-a-virus-anyone-else-get-this-one-whats-its-name-is-a-virus-scan-enough/106030/4 "2002-04-28T09:57:59Z")
I’ll close this and refer everyone to the ATMB thread that **evilhanz** linked to. **DrMatrix** - General Questions Moderator