I have been getting a number of emails with attachments lately (many indicate .exe files) and have noticed that a large percentage of them come from people whom i recognize their user name from the boards here and or on bigdoggie. many are from people i have not yet coresponded with and i am deleating them but got to wondering if someone is getting addys from board do spam us at home?

All a virus has to do is infect one computer from a person who corresponds with many people, and it has a list of many of us.  
If it infects two or three people in possession a lot of hobby addresses, then it a large percentage of us.

I suggest AVG Pro antiviral.  Put that on your email, and you will never see an exe file.

/Zin

NEVER EVER open (download) an .exe file even from someone you think you know...........that is like BB luv, and we know you would never escort BB.

Many viruses take over an infected computer's email application and send themselves from there.  They have access to that person's address book. It'll look like that person sent the email, since it came from his account, but (s)he is probably completely unaware of it.

The other advice here is good.  Never open a .exe file, but they're not the only dangerous ones.  Get yourself a good anti-virus program and always scan all attachments for possible viruses.

Well for one, your SPAM filter is not strong enough.  Also most if not all anti-virus programs out there would filter out e-mail messages with .exe attachments leaving you with just the e-mail.  I have Norton Corporate Edition and since I have installed it, I have not gotten a virus.  As the previous poster have said, do not open attachments with " .exe .pif "  Those could and will damage your computer once downloaded.  A good comercial program out there would be Norton Internet Security 2005, or the latest McAfee program.  There are also some very good online virus scanning programs out there, such as the one from Trendmicro's Housecall.  There is no magic bullet to stop a virus or a dedicated hacker, unless you are behind a Proxy Server, which is attached to the latest PIX firewall, with the latest IOS, a dedicated E-mail Server and a dedicated Anti-virus server running NeatSuite.  

All in all, just be careful of attachments from everyone, even those you know, unless you are expecting an attachment.  Always scan the attachment with the latest updated virus defintion too.  

My two cents.

Don't confuse SPAM with viruses.  A spam filter may very well let a virus cotaminated e-mail through.  A spam filter is also not the same as an antivirus program.

I host my own mail at my home.  I run Norton AV Corporate from my Domain Controller and manage all my clients at home from that console.  I got butt-loads of SPAM in my mailboxes.

Now I run a spam filter program called e-Manager that sits in front of Exchange Server and intercepts spam messages.

Even so, I do ocassionally get messages in mailboxes that contain a potential virus.  A spam filter won't stop that!

Having Exchange to filter out the potential SPAM also takes alot of time and patience.  There is no one piece of software or hardware that can detect and stop 100% of the SPAM and viruses out there,  just don't open attachments from people you do not know.  "DEL" would be my first option.