Mike's Safety Belt
~~Mike Baynes, MikesWhatsNews

Email Security and Attachments

Do you frequently receive email with interesting subject lines and attachments?

Be careful, many viruses will come to you this way. They may even come from people you know.

Some of the new viruses can obtain addresses to send themselves to, from email in the inbox of an infected person's computer, or their address book, or the addresses contained in an email.

The 'Klez worm' has even managed to get into one of the email lists I subscribe to, which requires a confirmation email to verify that the person actually did subscribe. Fortunately the list did not allow attachments, and the moderators spotted the action immediately.  Many email list/groups require that you use Plain Text, rather than Rich Text or HTML to avoid 'Scripts' hidden in the message.

See Visual Basic Script virus ~
http://www.sophos.com/virusinfo/articles/glossary.html#vbsvirus

You should be wary of all attachments in your email.  If you receive one from someone you know, email them before you open it to be sure they sent it. If you are sending someone an attachment, right click the attachment to obtain the file size.  Then send them a email to let them know the name and file size of the attachment. Ask your friends to do the same when they send you an attachment.

I recommend scanning all attachments with a recently updated AV program. I check my AV program every morning when I start my computer, just in case a new virus update has been created to catch a virus which I was not aware of.

Just because you have an Anti-Virus program installed does not mean you will be protected.  You must have the 'Email Scanning' enabled.  HackFix has a series of pages on setting up (configuring) most of the more common Anti Virus programs here:

Software reviews - Configuration Section
http://www.hackfix.org/software/configure/

If you do not have an Anti Virus program, here are some links to some freeware programs:

AntiVir ~ http://www.free-av.com/

Tauscan is free for 30 days and removes most Trojans ~ http://www.agnitum.com/

There are also several on line virus scans available, but not all of them are capable of a removing virus.  In fact, some viruses will prevent you from accessing Anti Virus sites, and updates.

Trend Micro's free online virus scanner
http://housecall.antivirus.com/housecall

Symantec (Norton Anti-virus) Security Check - Free on-line scan
http://security1.norton.com/us/intro.asp?venid=sym&langid=us

I also list several of the Anti Virus/trojan/Firewall programs and
links on page 4 of my Virus Info pages;
http://www3.bc.sympatico.ca/mikebike/hackfix_program_updates.htm

Mike Baynes is the editor of MikesWhatsNews .  To subscribe, send a blank email to mikeswhatsnews-request@freelists.org?Subject=subscribe

See Mike's Anti-Virus pages ~ http://virusinfo.hackfix.org.  To subscribe, send a blank email to: virusinfo-request@freelists.org?Subject=subscribe