You could receive e-mail messages informing you that a virus has been sent from your e-mail address. If you receive this kind of message, it is advisable to update your antivirus and scan all of your computer to check whether it actually contains a virus.
However, on scanning all of your computer with Panda Antivirus, it is possible that no infection is detected.
This happens because some viruses can falsify the e-mail address from which they are sent. Therefore, provided your Panda Antivirus is completely up to date, the message will have been sent from another computer that is infected with the virus and does not have effective antivirus protection installed. Until this person disinfects the computer, you will probably continue to receive these messages telling you that you are sending out viruses.
These viruses usually follow this routine: when they infect a computer, they access either all the names in the address book or the text files on the system that contain e-mail addresses . Then, they start sending out messages putting one of these names in the ‘From’ field and another in the ‘To’ field. When the recipients receive the infected e-mail messages, they think that it has been sent from the address that appears in the From field of the message, without knowing the real origin of the message.
Therefore, if your address appears in the address book or in a text file containing e-mail addresses on an infected computer, it could be used to spoof the sender’s address of e-mail messages sent out by a virus.
Some of the viruses that use this means of transmission are:
Remember that you can get more information about viruses by visiting our Virus Info Center.