Can I Really Catch an Email Virus
Just by Looking?
by Leo A. Notenboom
EMail Virus problems get worse each week. A new EMail Virus seems to appear
every day, and they're getting smarter. And each is an opportunity for even more
people to become infected.
In the past, asking if you could catch an EMail Virus just by reading your
EMail would get laughs from the techie geeks in the crowd. "Of course not!" they
would giggle.
Then came Outlook. All of a sudden you didn't even have to read your email to
get infected. And the geeks stopped giggling.
The techie geeks, in fact, are right once again. If you do the right things,
you cannot get a virus just by reading your email. And the "right things" aren't
that difficult.
The problem arose when HTML formatted email became popular. If you've ever
visited a visited a website that had a game or some other form of interactive
page, chances are you actually downloaded a program from that website to run on
your machine. Current web technologies blur the line between web pages that just
have pictures and text, and web pages that can actually do
something.
When EMail is sent in HTML format, all those constructs that work on web
pages could be included. And that means that all of a sudden your EMail
could do something as well.
Then came the preview pane. This is a window that displays the currently
selected message without you actually having to "open" it. If your inbox is
empty, and a new message arrives, it is displayed. It could do
something, even if you weren't around to open the message.
EMail had become a viral breeding ground, and you didn't even have to be
there to witness it.
Fortunately, these issues became very evident very fast. Security settings
were added to new versions of Outlook, and patches were issues for the older
versions. Even so, it took a few tries to get it right and each new version of
Outlook has become a little more secure than the previous.
The bottom line for the average user is this: Plain text email cannot infect
you just by looking at it. HTML Mail will not infect you just by looking at it,
if you are running a current version of Outlook or Outlook Express, and
keep any version of the two up to date with the latest patches.
Pretty simple, really.
Let's review some of the rules for safe EMail:
- Keep your versions of Windows, Outlook and Outlook Express up to date with
the latest patches.
- Keep your system clean of Viruses and Spyware by running the appropriate
Anti-Virus checkers and Spyware checkers on a regular basis. Keep those up to
date too.
- Never, ever open an attachment unless you're positive
you know what it is and that you trust the sender.
- Never, ever click on a link in an email message unless
you're positive you know where it's going and that you trust the
sender.
- Don't believe everything you read in email. PayPal and Citibank and
whomever else will not be asking you to verify your account by email
- it's probably just a scam to get your credit card number.
Leo A. Notenboom is a software engineer and entrepreneur who
worked for Microsoft for many years, either developing some of the company's
best known software or managing other engineers who did. When he left he started
his own software engineering company and consulting firm, Pudget Sound Software.
In addition to the services offered through
http://pugetsoundsoftware.com, Leo runs the the popular Ask Leo! technical
support site (http://www.ask-leo.com).
Leo can be reached at
leo@pugetsoundsoftware.com.
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