Author Topic: Incoming e-mail protection  (Read 5031 times)

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da23

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Incoming e-mail protection
« on: October 18, 2004, 09:05:33 PM »
HI,

Using WinXP Pro and Mozilla 1.7.3 and Avast! 4 Home.
I have set both incoming and outgoing e-mail for virus scanning.
When I send, I have seen a message stating that the e-mail is
being scanned.

When I receive, I never get an alert, but upon scanning the inbox
I am alerted to a virus.  This has forced me to scan the inbox
every time after I receive e-mail

Could this be because, when I check Alerts/SMTP,/Test I get a
message saying, "Unknown error.  The alert cannot be sent"
If so, how do I fix this?

Offline Eddy

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Re:Incoming e-mail protection
« Reply #1 on: October 18, 2004, 09:24:11 PM »
The last one "Alerts/SMTP" is for sending a alert through a email to someone if a infection is detected. Let's say I am the system administrator and you are a user. If your system gets infected, Avast will send me a message letting me know.

What you need to do is check if you have setup the mail protection correctly. Do a little search on this board on how to do it with mozilla. Several threads are explaining it. To test if the email scanning is working you can send the eicar test file to yourself.

Let us know if it is or not.
« Last Edit: October 18, 2004, 09:26:59 PM by Eddy »

da23

  • Guest
Re:Incoming e-mail protection
« Reply #2 on: October 19, 2004, 12:47:46 AM »
Hi Eddy,

I searched for Mozilla, Mozilla e-mail, etc.
and couldn't find anything.

The wizard, doesn't offer much.
I selected Automatically protect all my accounts
and Automatically protect all that I create in the
future.

After that, all that is asked for is the SMTP
server and the POP3 server.  I selected show
taskbat icon when processing mail.

I just thought of something ... only one POP3
server seems to be selectable.  I use two
POP3 servers with Mozilla's mail.  This must be
the problem ... Yes?

If so, can Avast! be setup to monitor more than
one server?  The wizard doesn't seem to allow
this.


Offline Lisandro

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Re:Incoming e-mail protection
« Reply #3 on: October 19, 2004, 03:10:10 AM »
da23, avast! work with as many servers as you want. That only server you see there is the 'default' one, for the cases you don't use an email account to send a message (for instance, to send a virus file for analysis). Don't worry.

About Mozilla, are you talking about Thunderbird?

If so, Thunderbird must be configurated manually. Change the setting of the email accounts into Thunderbird: Menu Tools > Account settings this way:

Pop3 (Inbound):

Server name: 127.0.0.1
User name: YourUserName#YourPopServerName
Port: 110

Smtp (Outbound):
Server name: 127.0.0.1
User name: YourUserName
(or, in some systems, user name is: YourUserName#YourSmtpServerName)
Port: 25

Note, probably you should run Mail Protection Wizard to have ashMaiSv.exe automatically running at Windows startup.

Do you use any spam killer?
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da23

  • Guest
Re:Incoming e-mail protection
« Reply #4 on: October 19, 2004, 09:52:17 AM »
Mozilla 1.7.3 is the Mozilla Suite, not Thunderbird.
I don't use any Microsoft mail stuff.
The OS is WinXP Pro.

I just ran the wizard, and selected the manual configuration.  It shows that the only filtered account Avast! knows about happens to be the virus problem account.  I saw where I can modify the Avast4.ini file, but I will do this later since the problem account is being filtered.  (I assume that I can add accounts this way.  If there is an easier way, please let me know.)

The ashMaiSv.exe is running at Windows startup.

The only spam killer I am using is the junk mail facility that Mozilla has.

So, it appears that avast! is filtering both incoming and outgoing mail on the problem account.  The only problem is that I am not notified that a virus has been found, or Avast! is not finding the virus.  When manually scanning the e-mail files, it often finds (maybe always?) a phishing trojan of some sort.  I am beginning to think that they are coming in a message spoofing Citibank, but I can't identify which message it is because I don't find out until I do a manual virus scan of the inbox and junk files.

Thanks for everyone's help while I am learning Avast!

Offline Lisandro

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Re:Incoming e-mail protection
« Reply #5 on: October 19, 2004, 03:38:04 PM »
I saw where I can modify the Avast4.ini file, but I will do this later since the problem account is being filtered.  (I assume that I can add accounts this way.  If there is an easier way, please let me know.)

You can't manage email accounts into avast4.ini file.
See 'Seetings' on my signature, section [MailScanner].
There we can only the 'default' pop3/smtp servers not email accounts.

The ashMaiSv.exe is running at Windows startup.

Good, you'll be able to scan pop3/smtp email accounts.

So, it appears that avast! is filtering both incoming and outgoing mail on the problem account.  The only problem is that I am not notified that a virus has been found, or Avast! is not finding the virus.

Can you see in the headers of the messages (Right click the message, choose Properties and Details), for instance:

X-Antivirus: avast! (VPS 0442-3, 15/10/2004), Inbound message
X-Antivirus-Status: Clean

If not, your emails are not being scanned.
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da23

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Re:Incoming e-mail protection
« Reply #6 on: October 19, 2004, 09:33:06 PM »
Maybe I forgot to mention that I use two servers and I have 3 accounts on one server and one (the problem account) on another server.  I don't know if this is relevant.

Thanks for the header hint.

I sent messages to myself from all accounts and I find that
all have an outbound scan, but only one (not the problem accout) has an inbound scan.   I guess this means Avast has found all accounts and servers, but only one account is doing an inbound scan.

Any ideas?

da23

  • Guest
Re:Incoming e-mail protection
« Reply #7 on: October 20, 2004, 12:01:04 AM »
Hi Technical,

For some reason the name#mail.server
was not set correctly on the accounts that
did not filter incoming mail.

Since WinXP, Mozilla and Avast were fresh
installations on a new hard drive, I don't
understand why it wasn't set correctly.

I think I have it fixed now, since when I send
mail from all accounts to myself at the same
account,  the header now shows outbound and
inbound virus scans.

I wouldn't have found the problem if I hadn't
clicked on custom setup in the Mail Protection
Wizard.  Your header hint was helpful too.

Thanks for all the help.

Offline Lisandro

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Re:Incoming e-mail protection
« Reply #8 on: October 20, 2004, 05:54:52 AM »
da23, you're welcome...
Come back frequently to ask for help or, better, to help  ;)
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