is there a rule in Avast to disallow or allow programs to send mass email?
I use the term “Prevent mass mailing worms from sending mail” because before moving to Avast we were on McAfee and to allow a locally developed program to export it’s data via mass email it’s program executable name was added the to a list of exceptions under the rule > Anti Virus Standard Protection > Prevent mass mailing worms from sending mail
I think that the Mail Shield in avast6/7 with Heuristics set to High may still have that same effect of blocking/alerting even though it isn’t listed/configurable.
Though I haven’t seen many instances of undetected/hidden mass mailing bots reported in the viruses and worms forum. Obviously I have no way of testing this short of infecting my system with a mass mailing bot to test the theory.
That specific setting dropped out in avast6, but as I said it is possible that having the Heuristics set to High in the Mail Shield may well still detect the presence of an undetected/hidden mass mailing bot. But I have no way of testing that theory short of infecting my system.