Viruses and Email Attachments

Viruses and Email Attachments Some people like to send out joke programs to their friends and opening these is risky. You have no way of knowing whether the file is safe.
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Viruses and Email Attachments[ Team LiB ]Viruses and Email AttachmentsSome people like to send out joke programs to their friends and opening these is risky.You have no way of knowing whether the file is safe. Opening every file Aunt Carolsends often results in your computer being infected with a virus, trojan horse application,or spyware. Many times your friends are not aware theyre infected until you alert them. The newest viruses get email address from any source— they listen to data that your modem sends and receives to get email addresses from your incoming and outgoing email, Web pages, and files in your Internet cache folder. Many viruses also include their own outgoing mail server so that you wont notice Outlook sending messages.Overall, Outlook 2003 is much more secure than previous versions of Outlook. TheOutlook Object Model (OOM) puts up a warning when a program attempts to read emailaddresses or message bodies. When you try to mail merge to email, you might have toapprove every message. The Preview pane is inactive and scripts wont run in email.Theres no way Outlook will cause your system to become infected without a lot of helpfrom you. But that doesnt mean youre home free. You still need to be careful, especiallywith email attachments. You know what viruses are, but what are trojan horses and spyware? Trojan horses are small programs that permit hackers to take control of your computer. At the very least, hackers can use your computer to attack other computers. At the other end of the scale, they might have full access to all the files on your drive, including any personal financial data you might have. Spyware is also known as adware, and although it usually isnt destructive, it downloads files to your drive and is often responsible for crashes.The first and possibly most important thing you can do is not open every attachment youreceive, even if its from your beloved Aunt Carol. Remember, cleaning up after a viruswont be nearly as funny as the joke she sent you. If the attachment isnt necessary foryour work or personal business, dont open it. When you stop opening every attachmentthat friends send you, you reduce your chances of infection to almost nothing. Remember to check for security updates regularly at Windows Update and Office Update (office.microsoft.com).[ Team LiB ]