Blocking or permitting suspicious messages>

I'm using the avast! 4 Home Edition antivirus program.

When I receive an email and I get the “Suspicious Message” announcement, the 'Permitted URL" and the “Block it” boxes are non-functional.
Is there anyway to activate them so you don’t have to go thru the “show the message” routine every time?
I have Win 98 and OE6.

What exactly is the reason (explanation) why the message is considered suspicious?

When receiving the email, it sounds the alarm and then shows the box “Possible Virus Detected” with the options, Delete, Continue, Permitted URL and Block it.
However, only the Delete and Continue options are functional.

Yes, but there should be some more info in the window (at least I think so)… why the message is considered suspicious.
(E.g. because the attachment has an executable extension, the attachment has double extension, there’s an iframe tag inside, etc)

Sorry, if I’m not making myself clear. Let me try to explain.
I’m get email daily from a gentleman who sends me various information.
It comes in to me addressed “TO: Undisclosed-Recipient:; (the Subject line is blank).
There is no attachment to open. The message is always there once I click on the “From box”
I thought possibly that the 'Permitted URL” and the “Block it” boxes are not available on the avast! 4 Home Edition.

Possibly it’s the blank subject-line that’s triggering the warning – my Eudora is set up to warn me if I try to send without a subject, so presumably it’s a risky area.

I think the “Permit URL” option is only active if the problem is an iframe or something similar which links to a website. And yes, that does work in the home version – in fact it’s the only warning I ever got from avast.

I guess there isn’t any way to make it work, is there?
Thanks anyway, for all your help? :slight_smile:

What do you mean?
Avast is doing its job and it is working in your system…
That was just an alarm of the Heuristic module.
Can you explain what is not working so we can help you? Thanks.

The system works fine.
All I want is to do is, Permit this 1 person to be able to send me messages without receiving the “Suspicious Message Announcement” everytime I receive it.
Is there anyway this can be done?
Thanks

Sure! 8)
Go to settings of Internet Mail (or Outlook/Exchange plugin): left click the ‘a’ blue ball icon. Choose the provider and ‘customize’.
Go to ‘Heuristic’ tab > Silent tab and choose the action :wink:

Well, that would simply turn off the warning for all e-mails.
I’m afraid it’s not possible to configure the behavior for one sender address only - all sources are handled in the same way.

To me the Undisclosed Recipients - would make me think Spam with multiple recipients in the BCC field. Combine that with no Subject line and my Mk1 brain would treat the email as suspicious. Heuristics would probably do the same.

Try getting him to enter a Subject line and direct the email to you (in the To field) not Undisclosed Recipients (leaving the To field blank), rather than put your email address in the BCC field. Unless of course he is sending it to multiple recipients, in which case he should put a dump email address (hotmail, etc.) in the To field (this account can be set to delete all content).

So, I understand that I will always receive the"Suspicious Message Announcement" unless I can receive email from him in a different format.

I guess even if I would purchase the Professional version, I still couldn’t get the system to accept this email?

Thanks for your patience and help.

I’m not saying that, simply that you should try it and see if it resolves the problem, first try it with a subject line and then with someone in the To field and see what happens.

It really shouldn’t cause you friend much additional effort to put a subject in the email or to send it with a real email address in the To field.

This surely would be better than switching off the heuristics for all email to get around a problem with email from one source.

Its a case of security over a little extra effort, convenience, or switch off heuristics or doing nothing and put up with the warnings. The decision is entirely yours.

This might be a bit off track, but I keep receiving emails from myself, it’s obviously spam, and the sender ‘spoofs’ my address.

But the attached files are in .tgz format, I NEVER open anything unless I am sure of what they are, so these go straight in the trash.

It’s a real trap as viruses trying to lure you into opening them, in attachments with names like myhotvids.tgz.

Or messages that say I just got my naked pics back, take a look etc.

They come in my yahoo email account which is scanned for viruses, but apparently the .tgz format can not be scanned properly.

So if you recieve an attachment with the extension .tgz be very wary.

HypnoT0AD

So if you recieve an attachment with the extension .tgz be very wary.
You should be extremely cautious of any attachment reguardless of the file type. If your not expecting it and don't know in advance what it is trash it. May I ask why your not utilizing the Spam function that yahoo offers? Anything I receive from any I don't know is automatically added to spam.

I do use the spam guard which is pretty basic Bob.

I now write my own filters, which I have a lot of experience with.

I have one set now that anything that has my email address as the sender goes straight in the trash.

And can you tell me is it true that virus scanners can’t check files with the .tgz extension?

More about tgz extension:
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?board=2;action=display;threadid=7337

Hope it helps…

Seek and yea shall find, Internet Mail provider, Customize…, Heuristics set the slider to Custom, click Customize… and look for the Attachment checks and untick the first one, the second will probably be ok try it and see, you can always untick it later if need be.

Remember this effects all attachment checking in both NNTP and POP3.