Is somebody deliberately targeting me with viruses?

Factual Questions
1

lately, my Hotmail account has been receiving one or two messages per day with viruses attached (doesn’t affect me because A) I use Mailwasher B) I only view them on the web (because I use Oultook, not Express and it can’t download from Hotmail).

But these messages almost invariably come from yahoo accounts - unless the senders are paying for POP accounts (or just spoofing the headers, I suppose), then somebody would be sending these from the Yahoo web mail interface, so it couldn’t be a worm or anything.

What is the likelihood that someone is directly targeting me?

2

Viruses such as Klez are self-propogating. Once a person’s computer is infected, it sends itself out to all of that person’s contact. (With the real sender slightly disguised. You have to read the full header to find out who is really infected.) If there is a group of people that email each other and have you on their list, then you’ll get a virus email from each of them.

If you know who to really read full email headers, then you can figure out where they are really coming from and inform the senders they are infected.

The best defense against email viruses is to NOT use MS Outlook.

3

So, FTG, or anyone else, what is a good, stable, compatable alternative to MS Outlook? An I’m not talkin’ about any kind of web-based email, like using my ISP’s email portal. It does seem like most viruses target Outlook, so using another email program makes sense.

4

Pegasus.

It’s good. It’s free. It’s not Outlook.

5

<a href=“http://www.eudora.com/”>Eudora</a> is also worth checking out. Its UI needs a serious overhaul, and the chili pepper thing is just silly, but it’s very stable and it’s got mad filtering and search skillz.

6

Uh, what I really meant was:

Eudora is also worth checking out. Its UI needs a serious overhaul, and the chili pepper thing is just silly, but it’s very stable and it’s got mad filtering and search skillz.
Sigh.

7

I actually use a lot of Unix tools under Cygwin. I also run my on SMTP server so that means I get to use good old Berkeley SendMail CLI. (Elm is for wimps.) Avoids a tremendous number of headaches that way. (E.g., uniform access on my Linux boxes too.) All free of course.