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I recently received an infected e-mail which came from a very well
respected computer firm, this made me realise that if they can be
infected without knowing it we all should make every effort to combat
the virus threat. With this in mind I have updated all my virus
checkers and will continue to do so on a regular basis and I feel that
my advice to my clients and indeed to every one is to do the same.
Read on for more anti-virus information and
at the bottom of this page there are various free
and paid for anti-virus products available A lot of
the fancy stuff you see in web pages are provided by scripts and
the idea is that these scripts can not get out the web page but
alas now that is not quite the case. This very problem can manifest
itself when you send someone an HTML e-mail as has been shown by
the Kak virus which is capable of infecting a PC just by reading the
offending e-mail. It was just this sort of virus that I came across recently delivered within an
e-mail message NOT
as an attachment. I have always deleted attachments sent to me if I was
unsure of their origin but that precaution is no longer good enough.
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I recommend that you do not open
attachments or install files from anyone you don't trust absolutely. Even
this strategy now has its problems as it has been known for viruses to be
sent from spam addresses that have been disguised as real email addresses
so your anti virus checker may tell you that an incoming e-mail from
someone you know is infected whereas in fact that e-mail address has in
fact been temporality hi-jacked. Be vigilant at all times watch out
for new attacks such as warnings of non-deliverable messages to people
that you had not originally messaged these should be immediately deleted.
Empty
all trash folders and temp folders and back up your documents on a very
regular basis.
One way to avoid spreading e-mail viruses is to send all
messages as "plain text", this unfortunately restricts the
sending of fancy formatted messages such as greeting cards etc but I think
we could all live without them. To set Outlook to send only plain
text messages select Tools, Options, Mail Format and select "plain
text".
To do the same in Outlook Express select Tools, Options click on the
"Send Tab" and select "plain text".. These precautions
will not protect your system from attack but will prevent you from passing
on nasty surprises to your contacts. To protect your system use a
quality anti-virus package.
On one of my PC's I have a virus checker installed
that regularly makes the system crash and often utilities like that make
systems unstable but I now firmly believe that these minor irritations are
now a necessary inconvenience to put up with.
If you already have anti-virus software on your
system then I suggest you make sure it is up to date (usually done
online), if you have not I suggest that you obtain a suitable software
package, there are often free packages on magazine cover CDs. WHICH EVER
PRODUCT YOU DECIDE TO USE UPDATE IT AS OFTEN AS POSSIBLE
If you value the data on your PC and your time I believe the above is good
advice and is really the right thing to do to protect other users SH Wetherald
You can have your PC checked for security
and viruses here at www.symantec.co.uk/safe_uk
Here is a handy site
if you need some help
www.getvirushelp.com
