Viruses - what can they do?

[JayE]

Hi everyone,

One of my colleague's has a home PC which is infected with a virus (which sends an e-mail with the subject line "various" - I don't know the name of the virus).

The PC is protected by Sophos, but it doesn't update automatically, so I guess his defs must have gone out of date.

As soon as he realised he had a virus, he shut down the PC and is waiting for his friend to come and fix it.

If the PC is turned off, can the virus still be sending out virus infected e-mails in his name?

He thinks it can't, because the PC is turned off and has no access to the modem. I think it can, because the virus is not sending the viruses out from HIS PC or HIS modem, but from their system under his name.

Am I right in my understanding?

Regards,
Jay/UK

 

[epohl]

If the PC is turned off then NO it cannot be sending out any additional viruses. However there are Viruses such as Klez.H that will spoof the from address on the email and choose random names from the infected PC's address book. So it is possible that infected emails could be sent with his return address but in fact they are no coming from his pc or being sent by him.

 

[JayE]

Hi,

Thanks - that's what I thought.

Regards,
Jay/UK