In the past when your computer acquires a virus your computer would begin sending infected messages to people in your address book. This used to be easy to track because the sender is the person who is infected. This led virus software to send courtesy E-mail messages to the sender informing them that their computer is infected with a virus.

Viruses are becoming intelligent and forge the sender name. For example if Bob gets a virus on his computer and Bob has two people, John and Mary, in his address book. Bob’s computer would send an E-mail message from John to Mary, and another E-mail message from Mary to John. This causes John and Mary accusing each other that their computer is infected. There is no indication in the E-mail that the original sender of the message actually came from Bob. To add to the problem some virus software sends courtesy E-mail notices to the sender informing their computer is infected with a virus when it is likely the sender is not infected. If you get one of the courtesy notices the best course of action is to delete the message.

When in doubt, do not read the message or open the attachment!