- Treat all attachments as containing potential viruses.
- Do not open any attachments unless
- you have scanned them with an up to date antivirus
program (note: this is not 100% guarranteed protection)
- you were expecting them and they are from a trusted source.
- Never open attachments if you do not know who they
are from!
- Be very wary of any attachment whose file extension
indicates it is a type of program. Files ending with extensions
of .exe, .pif, .vbs should be treated as viruses unless you are
absolutely sure you know what the file it is and who it is from.
Image files such as .gif or .jpg are usually safe to open as
they are not programs however, be wary of trojan viruses who
disguise themselves as harmless files eg: filename.gif.pif
here the file is a .pif virus but it pretends to be a .gif image
file.
- If you receive a suspicious e-mail attachment or if
you are unsure as to why you have been sent the attachment, e-mail
the sender with a new e-mail (do not reply to the original suspect
e-mail) asking them to confirm that they mean't to send you the
attachment. If they have contracted the virus they may not even
know that they have sent it on to you.
- As most e-mail viruses are targeted at the Outlook
and Outlook Express e-mail programs (aka e-mail clients) you
should consider using one of the many free alternative programs
such as Eudora or Netscape Messenger. These programs are less
likely to catch and spread viruses and are more stable than the
Outlook programs.
Note: Eudora Light is free, Eudora Pro has more features
and therefore requires a paid licence. Netscape Messenger is
part of the Netscape Communicator suite (version 4.7x is best
or 6.1 is OK. Do not use version 6.0). You can download any of
these programs from the Asitis "Downloads"
pages.
- Delete any suspect e-mails from your inbox and then
make sure you delete them from your Trash or Deleted Items folder
to totally remove them from your system. Extra Tips
Anti-Virus Software
The best way to protect your computer against virus nasties is
to use Anti-virus software:
1. Install an Anti Virus program if you don't already have one.
2. Update your Anitvirus Program regularly: Just because you
havean anti-virus program does not mean it will protect you from
the latest strains of computer virus. As new viruses are released
into the Internet the various Anit-virus software manufacturers
follow closely by producing updates for your anti-virus program.
You MUST update your anti-virus program regularly if you are
to be protected against all of the known viruses on the Internet.
Viruses and Mac
For those lucky Apple Mac
users out there, you are imune to 99% of all viruses. This does
not mean you can not spread them, so before forwarding any emails
to your windows using friends make sure the message doesn't contain
any files that might potentialy contain a virus.
There are currently only approximately 46 known viruses that
infect Mac compared to More than 58,000 windows
viruses, the majority of these are macro viruses which infect
programs such as Microsoft Word and Excel and the majority of
the other viruses only attack system 7.x and below.
