Something weird is going on... ~150 emails being sent at once...

[kareem]

I work at a large church org in Richmond, Ca. We have a small workstation force with about 12 PC's with XP running. We aren't using Exchange and so we're just using POP email accounts provided by Comcast. All accounts are configured in each of the users' MS Outlook programs.

For some reason, one of the workstations cant seem to send or recieve emails. This doesnt happen all the time - it seems intermittent. When he gets the error, it says something to the effect that there's a Comcast error, check their FAQ/SpamFilter file 17867" or something like that. Occasionally, this same workstation will send out a blast of hundreds of emails.I checked the FAQ on Comcast's site and they think it could be some bad spyware/adware.

Another workstation had this same problem. I removed the POP account from that workstation, re-added the account and then all was better, only to have that same error happen again later in the day.

We ran adware and Nortons (outdated) but couldn't find anything. I told the users to uninstall their outdated Nortons and install AVG or another similar app. I dont know what else to do, short of format/reinstall XP.

Any other suggestions?

[Sterling_Aug]

Why not install some decent anti-spyware programs?

Norton does nothing and neither does AVG against spyware.

Try Counterspy or Microsoft Defender.

http://www.sysopt.com/forum/showthread.php?t=161595

[BipolarBill]

Viruses and spyware install their own POP clients. Nothing you do in Outlook or any other e-mail app will make a dent in what you now have - a zombie PC that's under the control of a spammer.

Get wise and scan the heck out of it. If necessary, format and reinstall Windows. Get hold of the clueless user who has this PC and educate them.