Hijacked email

I'm shopping for a new antivirus program.

 

I just had an instance where an email got opened, and the link was selected. The link took me to a website that was ordinary looking (MSNBC site about jobs). Unknown to me, similar emails were then sent to everyone on my contact list. I have a laptop running Windows XP, and a desktop running Windows 7. Yahoo is my email client, and I also use Windows Live Mail.

Several people that received the hijacked message from me opened the link accidentally and also had emails sent to their contact list.  The email that I opened originally was sent by my cousin.  I have a strong password that is only 1 week old.

Would Norton antivirus have stopped that?