McAfee VirusScan 10.0, User Manual

Page: 17 / 98

User Guide 17
Using ActiveShield
Scanning for worms
VirusScan monitors your computer for suspect activity that might indicate a threat
is present on your computer. While VirusScan cleans viruses and other threats,
WormStopper
TM
prevents viruses and worms from spreading further.
A computer “worm” is a self-replicating virus that resides in active memory and
might send copies of itself through e-mail. Without WormStopper, you might
notice worms only when their uncontrolled replication consumes system
resources, slowing performance or halting tasks.
The WormStopper protection mechanism detects, alerts, and blocks suspect
activity. Suspect activity might include the following actions on your computer:
An attempt to forward e-mail to a large portion of your address book
Attempts to forward multiple e-mail messages in rapid succession
If you set ActiveShield to use the default
Enable WormStopper (recommended)
option in the
Advanced Options
dialog box, WormStopper monitors e-mail activity
for suspect patterns and alerts you when a specified number of e-mails or
recipients has been exceeded within a specified interval.
To set ActiveShield to scan sent e-mail messages for worm-like activity:
1
Right-click the McAfee icon, point to
VirusScan
, then click
Options
.
2
Click
Advanced
, then click the
E-mail
tab.
Figure 2-2. Advanced ActiveShield Options - E-mail tab