We have received many calls and emails from customers and friends, who have received an email, from someone they knew, that contained a dangerous virus website link or infected attachment. Noting that the email was from a friend, family member, colleague or a known business contact, they clicked the website link or opened the attachment, only to find their computer immediately infected by a nasty virus. This underhanded way of infecting computers with viruses, spyware and other malware, is on the rise. Here are some simple rules for reducing your risk of getting caught in this trap.
Consider all business and personal emails as potentially dangerous. If ever in doubt, delete it!
The "From:" field can be easily faked to look like it came from someone or a business you have dealt with. If a friend or business, that you deal with, gets a virus infection, it can make a copy of their email contact list, and send email to all people in that list.
Be very suspicious of any email with no subject or "RE:" as the subject. A "RE:" should always have the subject of the reply following it.
Be very suspicious of any email with no textual content and only a website link or attachment. Attachments can contain dangerous links to virus infected sites or an infected software executable. This is a file that once it is double clicked, can plant dangerous spyware or install malicious software.
Do not click on a link or attachment unless you were expecting an email from the sending person.
If you aren't sure about the email, it might be a good idea to call the sender. If they didn't send the email, ask them to quickly change their email account password and have their computer scanned for viruses and spyware. You should immediately delete the email.
To reduce the risk of your email contact list from being used to perpetrate one of these nasty email crimes, make sure you use a strong password to protect your email account. Short and simple passwords are easy to break. Secondly, install a quality antivirus software on your computer. Most people, who come into our Fort Collins, Colorado office, with a virus infected computer, were using the antivirus software, provided free, by their Internet service provider. We have found that the "big" name antivirus companies produce weak antivirus protection and also slow down your computer.
Hello, I'm Dan Ruffolo, the owner/operator of Computer Pc Medic ( http://www.computerpcmedic.com/ ), a computer repair company, in Fort Collins, Colorado. We offer computer repair services and training to homes, students and small businesses in Fort Collins, Loveland, Windsor and Greeley, Colorado. We also provide business office IT customization to help business offices run more efficiently and securely.
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