Check your PCs for viruses!

[Brian]

Also remember if you have a common first part of your email adress such as yourfirstname@myisp.xx there are viruses that use name-lists (of common firstnames and alike) and will sniff upp all domains found on an infected machine and send mails to all names in it's name-list + all domains found on the infected machine.

I know... got boomber with up to 500 virus mails a day on my brian@myisp.xx when MyDoom first started it's terror due to this "feature" (calculating around 100K a mail I had to empty my inbox several times a day over a 2 week period due to this or no legit mail would've had a chanse to reach me, damn my ISP for not offering antivirus on incomming mails!).

[Brian]

Viruses can also pick up email adresses from documents and alike on the infected machine so it's a big effort trying to pinpoint who is infected.

Instead of trying to find who is infected it's better to put your resources into keeping your own backyard safe.

[Brian]

Here's what I use. First line of defence... a simple router... then ZAp and F-Secure (updated daily). For mails I use MailWasherPro to scan all mails and read them without HTML etc support before passing on the mails that are left to OE... attachments are evil and aren't blody likley to get in without me knowing exactly what it is first.

Safety is relative... to be compleatly safe the computer should be unplugged and in storage but that's no fun... I've done what I find resonalbe and I find myself resonable safe.