Patent ID: 7299361

Claim:
A method for protecting a user computer, comprising: receiving an incoming e-mail message at a remote e-mail server over a network; blocking the incoming e-mail message if a sender address associated therewith is included in a list of predetermined sender addresses corresponding to a user computer; scanning the incoming e-mail message for a virus to determine that the incoming e-mail message is clean if the scanning fails to detect a virus in the incoming e-mail message and to determine that the incoming e-mail message is infected if the scanning detects a virus in the incoming e-mail message; transmitting the incoming e-mail message from the remote e-mail server to the user computer over the network, if it is not blocked; and attempting to clean the infected incoming e-mail message if the scanning detects a virus in the incoming e-mail message to generate a cleaned e-mail message if the attempt to clean is successful; wherein a text message is transmitted to the user computer if the scanning detects the virus in the incoming e-mail message, indicating results of the scanning, the text message being included in the cleaned e-mail message if the attempt to clean is successful; wherein the text message is inserted in a subject header of the cleaned e-mail message, the text message being inserted at a beginning of the subject header of the cleaned e-mail message or appended at an end of the subject header of the cleaned e-mail message.