alikhan said:
Alejandro85 said:
Obviously email accounts by themselves cannot catch viruses (they only hold data, don't run programs there).

Do you use external access to use it? (like POP, IMAP, etc) Or just web access only?

If you're using an email client, it may be a virus in your computer that uses that program on your behalf to spread itself. But if you use solely web access, then maybe you fall prey of a phishing site and gave your password without knowing it, so someone can login or use a bot to send mails.

In any case, run a good scanner on your PCs, change all your passwords (NEVER use the same on 2 places) and be extra careful on any webpage that ask you to login.
Actually they do run programs . The virus can be created as a Word document and uploaded it to an Internet newsgroup. Anyone who downloaded the document and opened it would trigger the virus. The virus would then send the document (and therefore itself) in an e-mail message to the people in the person's address book. The e-mail message contained a friendly note that included the person's name, so the recipient would open the document, thinking it was harmless. The virus would then new messages from the recipient's machine.

Also the virus may contained a piece of code as an attachment. Virus can took advantage of the programming language built into Microsoft Word called VBA i guess , It is a complete programming language and it can be used to write programs that do things like modify files and send e-mail messages.People who double-clicked on the attachment launched the code. I have read that some do have an auto-execute feature too. A programmer can insert a program into a document that runs instantly whenever the document is opened. It is really more of a Trojan horse distributed by e-mail than it is a virus. all this is more then enough to create huge mess for the infected computer .
Yes, agree 100%, but that doesn't means that the virus runs at the mail server. It runs where you open it, in your local version of Word, your computer runs the malicious VBA code inside and it sends thought another mail. The mailbox is just a medium of distribution, but doesn't participate actively in anything, just transfers data. The mail account itself cannot be infected, but it can contain infected mails.

The OP probably go one of such Word documents or something like that, that began spreading itself using the mail. Maybe disabling POP access from the web mail can help, given that he doesn't uses it.