How to Detect Certain Virus and Worms

The recent Love Letter virus infected millions of computer users. As you know, Love Letter spread quickly by accessing the user's address book and sending a copy of the virus to everyone listed therein.

Outlook users (and possibly users of other mail clients) might find it useful to have a dummy user in the address book to help detect future worms. By creating a fictitious user with a bogus email address, a user can make Outlook generate an onscreen error message about that bad address anytime it's used to send email, including when used by a virus or worm. Having such a bogus email contact won't stop a virus or worm, but it will alert you that something is accessing your address book without your approval. You can then contact your network security personnel to investigate.