Related Resources • BadTrans Removal • Virus Encyclopedia • Glossary of terms

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Filtering BadTrans
If you are a Netscape or Eudora user, you can easily create a filter to delete the BadTrans.b emails automatically. With the sender, subject, and attachment name random, filtering can be tricky. However, the sender's address is prepended with an underscore, "_". Since Eudora and Netscape Mail allow for very specific filtering, tht _ becomes the filtering target.

For Eudora users, Jone Johnson Lewis, the About.com guide to Women's History provides the following tip, "I used the "contains" option, but included the opening bracket, too, so that makes sure that email addresses with an underscore in the middle don't get caught. Thus, the filter looks for "<_" not "_"." The Eudora Instruction Manual provides the steps necessary for setting up filters.

Netscape Mail users will benefit from Jayne Pedigo's advice. Jayne is the About.com Guide to Horses. Jayne reports, "In Netscape mail I used the filters "Sender" begins with "_" AND Subject begins with "Re:". I set that up about an hour ago and it's filtered 3 to the trash already." Directions for setting up mail filters in Netscape can be found here.

Gerald Erichsen, the About.com Guide to Spanish had less encouraging - but still helpful - news for Pegasus users. Gerald notes, "Pegasus isn't capable of automatically filtering out email with attachments, but with a little bit of work it can be set so that files with certain extensions (such as .exe, .pif and .scr) can't be viewed (only saved to disk)." This tip will hopefully prevent accidental opening of the attachments and lessen the spread of the virus.

Ironically, Outlook and Outlook Express users are the very ones most vulnerable to the virus and yet have the fewest options for filtering. Users of those mail programs will find the products listed in the Content Filtering section most useful.

Special thanks goes to Sue Chastain, the About Graphics Software guide who originally came up with the underscore filtering idea.