AV is good when any method of introducing files to your system occurs, not just mail. So AV also saves you from downloads via Web, FTP, IM, memory sticks, camera cards, and MP3 devices etc.

BTW you can use Virscan as a kind of AV, by using the DenyExtensions option in Virscan.ini to completely ban extension type(s)

Martin

Hello all,

Three times in the past three days (for two different mailboxes on the same system accessed across a network) I have had an error message come up telling me on exiting from a folder that a serious error has occurred. It told me that I had to exit Pegasus mail immediately and use an undelete utility to recover the files (pmi and pmm files). On two of those occasions there was a need to do this, on the third the files were intact and there was no need to recover them.

Although I was able to restore the files from backups (lost the mail that had come in since the backup that occurred in the night) there is obviously something going on that needs to be fixed. I installed Bitdefender Antivirus in the past few days and although I have instructed it not to scan incoming mail, it does put a variation of this message on each mail that comes in:

"X-BitDefenderWKS-SpamStamp: v1, build 2.7.41.58626, bayes score:
 500(0), pbayes score: 214(122), neunet score: 512(221), flags:
 [BRANDS; LONG_LINK; URL_BETWEEN_NEWLINES; B_SUMM_HAS_LINK_NMD_08;
 SIGN_HTML_TAGS_UPPER_AND_LOWER_CASE_NMD_081001_01;
 B_PERCENT_NMD_081006_01; LEGIT_SUMM_200_WORDS; B_HAS_EMAIL_NMD_08;
 USELESS_CONTENT_TYPE; ORIGINALS; URL_BEFORE_END; B_NOWRAP_080925_01;
 DIFFERENT_HREF], total: 343(725)
X-BitDefenderWKS-Spam: No - 343"

Could BitDefender be causing this problem, does anyone know? Does anyone use BitDefender without problems?

I would appreciate any help on this.

Many thanks,

Ellie

Could BitDefender be causing this problem, does anyone know? Does anyone use BitDefender without problems?

Yes the anti-virus software can cause this problem if it is scanning any file when accessed in the WinPMail directories.  Make sure it is not scanning any mail folder since if it does this it will delete the mail folder if it finds what it thinks is a virus.

[quote user="Thomas R. Stephenson"]

Yes the anti-virus software can cause this problem if it is scanning any file when accessed in the WinPMail directories.  Make sure it is not scanning any mail folder since if it does this it will delete the mail folder if it finds what it thinks is a virus.[/quote]

Thanks Thomas,

Okay, so I have stopped it scanning the new mail folder and have had no issues at all in the past few days. I have also stopped it scanning incoming mail. I don't seem for the moment at least, to be able to use Martin's Virscan (he is trying to find out how to use it on this program).

So is there any reason to have an antivirus program if you can't scan incoming mail? I know there are other risks, but the main one is email. I can scan a file once saved, of course, but it seems that the auto scan and scheduled scans are not of any use. Is this so? It will scan my backed up mail folder as well as the Popfile folder, but this will not clear a virus out of a message that I receive (for the backed up one, it will clean the file out a day late).

Ellie

[quote user="Ellie Kennard"]

So is there any reason to have an antivirus program if you can't scan incoming mail?

[/quote]

I was wondering about that too [;)]

Deactivating virus scan for Pmail can only be a temporary fix with tape and wire, not a long term solution.

[quote user="Ellie Kennard"]

So is there any reason to have an antivirus program if you can't scan incoming mail? I know there are other risks, but the main one is email. I can scan a file once saved, of course, but it seems that the auto scan and scheduled scans are not of any use. Is this so? It will scan my backed up mail folder as well as the Popfile folder, but this will not clear a virus out of a message that I receive (for the backed up one, it will clean the file out a day late).

Yes, no and maybe.  The real answer is that the email should be scanned for a virus before it ever gets to you.  Since you are running Mercury/32 I would recommend you use Clamwall and ClamAV to scan all mail received and then use VirScan with one of the many free commandline a-v scanners as a backup if you want additional security.  If you can't do this with BitDefender then look to one of the others than can like Avast!, AVG, etc.

Personally though, I've found that most anti-virus software causes more problems than the viruses that are supposed to be detecting.  My primary mode of avoiding a virus is to not open any attachments received via email unless I can verify the source.  No a-v software can detect a day-one (or hour-one) attack so good practices are the best defense.  That said, I am running McAfee Enterprise v8.0 on my Windows systems but they are not touching any of the Mercury/32 or Pegasus Mail directories.  ;-)  I do run a regular scan on the disk drives at night as well.