BT Virus Protect

[SharonG1]

Does BT Virus Protect protect against hacking?  My BT email was hacked yesterday (the Amazon scam), causing enormous problems and one contact fell for the scam.  I've now set up two-step authentication (with the help of a wonderful chap at BT's Liverpool call centre), but wondered if I need better internet security - I currently only have free AVG, which one computer expert told me should be sufficient but I'm not so sure now.  Any suggestions would be welcome.  Many thanks.

[gg30340]

---

@SharonG1 wrote:

Does BT Virus Protect protect against hacking?  My BT email was hacked yesterday (the Amazon scam), causing enormous problems and one contact fell for the scam.  I've now set up two-step authentication (with the help of a wonderful chap at BT's Liverpool call centre), but wondered if I need better internet security - I currently only have free AVG, which one computer expert told me should be sufficient but I'm not so sure now.  Any suggestions would be welcome.  Many thanks.

---

Most hacks are caused because the email account holder has clicked on a link within an email or downloaded something that the email said they should or because they received a telephone call from a scammer and they were persuaded to install a piece of software that allowed the scammer access to their computer.

If the person who was hacked received an email purporting to be from you it is most likely that your email address was "spoofed" (See link Email spoofing - Wikipedia ) to make it appear that it came from you and as such it leads the recipient to think it was a genuine email sent from you when in fact it is a scam email.

If the recipient either hovers their mouse over the email address purporting to be from you or checks the "headers" within the email they would see the true email address where the email originated from. 

If it was the case that your email account was hacked I would suggest that you immediately change your password and inform your bank and any other company that has your bank details or that you use to make purchase that your account may have been compromised.  

[SharonG1]

Thank you for this, although I really wanted to know if BT Virus Protect was worth changing to from free AVG.  I have no idea how my email account was hacked: I never click on links in emails (unless from a trusted source) and I certainly never received a call from a scammer persuading me to install some software on my computer. In this particular case (and I have actually been on the receiving end of a similar scam when a neighbour had her email hacked), the hackers changed my password (which was strong), set up a fake email address and then "auto-forwarded" the replies to the original fake email to the fake email address. In the follow-up email, the scammers asked the recipient to purchase Amazon vouchers.  I couldn't change my password until BT helped me regain access to my email account; BT also helped me remove the fake email address and the auto-forwarding (a feature that I never knew existed until now).

[gg30340]

I had used the free AVG for a number of years in the past and I had no issues with it and no hacks or viruses. 

I now use Avast Free having moved from AVG when it became known that AVG were selling users browsing history and search date to advertisers.

It has to be up to you if you want to replace it with BT Virus Protect, which is a Norton product  or stick with what you have. 

BT Virus Protect may have some additional features over Free AVG but as regards the basic protection for malware and viruses I doubt there will be much between them.

You can check out AVG's website about email hacking by searching for "AVG how to tell if your email is hacked"  which will give you a lot of useful information and if you substitue AVG with Norton you will get Norton's information and you can then make an informed decision.

[SharonG1]

Thank you very much for this - it's very helpful and has given me something to think about.