Could I have Gotten Malware from Yahoo! Mail?

[jakeny]

I know this is going to sound like a dumb and overly paranoid question, but here goes anyways (forgive me in advance!):

I use Yahoo! mail as one of my email accounts. That email account is attached to my fantasy basketball league in Yahoo! Sports. However, I have not used my Yahoo! email account in close to a year now (instead, I use Gmail) after getting a virus/bug attached to a MS Word document (sent from an unscrupulous friend last year). That email of my friend's with the virus attached is STILL in my Yahoo! mail account. It's sitting in one of my folders.

I have not used that email account in almost a year and am on a different/new computer anyways.

HOWEVER, I did log into my old Yahoo! email account this week, in order to accept an invitation from an old fantasy basketball league pal to join his league this year. Note: I ONLY opened the fantasy basketball league invitation and DID NOT open or look at any other email. But, could the existence of a malware infected email (from my other friend who sent that MS Word document) sitting in my account somehow infect me now?

In other words, if I have a malware infected email sitting in my email account, but I don't open/read that email, nor download any attachments from it, could the malware somehow transfer to me still (just by virtue of logging into my email account and/or looking at other non-infected emails)?

Hope this makes sense and appreciate the feedback for a bizarre question!!

 

[setishock]

It would be best to delete that one poisoned email. You do know if your so called friend did send that with malicious intent, you can have him locked up. See how he likes that.

I don't think it would affect your other emails on Yahoo's servers.

 

[Randy11]

I personally doubt you will have any problems with that particular e-mail but I do agree you should delete it and don't use an e-mail program to download your e-mail. For Yahoo mail I would just use the browser as that way you are not downloading any e-mail. Keep your anti-virus up to date and use SuperAntiSpyware and Adwcleaner to keep your computer clean. I also would be very careful about attachments, if I get an e-mail with attachments I scan the downloaded attachment. I only will allow an attachment to download if I absolutely trust the individual who sent it to me and only through web mail. Even so things can still happen so usually that night I do a complete scan just to be sure.

 

[Draygoes]

I can answer that you will defiantly not get infected by this email, and it would have to have been executed on the yahoo mail server to have infected any other mail.
In short, just delete it, and you will be fine.