Expert: James Filmer - 4/23/2010

Question
Dear James-
I received and email with 2 jpg attachments. I do not know the person very well, so I chose to open the files rather than save.
While viewing one of the pics, I received bottom right popup saying that the download was complete. My download window came up, showing only that download, but not all of my othersI assumed that I must have done this by accident. The next day I viewed the email again, viewed one of the 2 innocent pics, and the same thing happened.
I went to my pics, my docs, my recent docs, and my downloads, and the files were not there.
I performed a picture search on one of the pic file names. nothing, then I added hidden files, and it came up, as a pic.
I then performed a search for any file types  using just part of the name but no results
As I just met this person a few days ago, this raises a bit of paranoia in me, so I am running a virus scan at the moment.

Any thoughts or suggestions?
Thanks
Lisa

Answer
Hi Lisa,

Let me know what your virus scan reveals. You made the right decision to check. Also, can you access Windows Update? If yes, check Custom search. It will detect any missing critical updates, and might offer something else you might want.

What's the name and version of your anti-virus and firewall? What anti-spyware applications do you use? How often to you update and scan for spyware?  No reason to know at this point, but mistakes happen. Some attachments are OK to open, but never in an email. They should even be touched - unless you have an anti-virus that scans incoming email messages and attachments by default, and the attachments are jpg, gif, pdf, and from a trusted company, family or friend.

Can't tell if your computer's been compromised yet. More about opening attachments:
http://help.expedient.com/mailnews/attachments.shtml#virus