Reducing your risk of getting e-mail viruses : concerning viruses

E-mail is one of the most common ways that viruses and worms are spread on the Internet. A friendly looking e-mail from anyone can carry a virus that could damage your data and your computer. You can help protect your computer by taking the following precautions with e-mail:

• Don't open attachments from unknown sources.
• Get virus-scanning software and set it up to scan e-mail messages and attachments.
• Since new viruses are created regularly, make sure you have the latest updates to your virus-scanning software.
• Even if you know and trust the source of the e-mail you should still be cautious. If someone you know sends you an e-mail attachment, look at the subject line carefully before opening it. If the subject line is gibberish or does not make any sense to you, check with the sender before opening it.
• Read messages from unknown sources in plain text.

Blocking unwanted messages

You can control the e-mail and news messages you get in your email client software eg Outlook Express in several ways. You can block certain people from sending you e-mail, you can hide conversations that don't interest you, and you can guard against being sent damaging code in e-mail by setting security levels

• Block messages from a sender or domain (Applies to MSOE)
  

  When you block a sender or domain, no e-mail or news message from that sender or domain will arrive in your Inbox or in the news messages you read. E-mail from blocked senders goes directly into your Delete folder. Newsgroup messages from blocked senders are not displayed.

  1. From your e-mail Inbox or the list of messages in a newsgroup, select a message from a sender you want to block.
  2. On the Message menu, click Block Sender.
     
• Manage the blocked senders list
• Set security zones if your email client software allowes you.  Security zones enable you to choose whether or not active content, such as ActiveX Controls and scripts, can be run from inside HTML e-mail messages

Most of these applies to Microsoft Outlook Express (MSOE) and its derivatives or upgrade versions as Windows Mail, and other clients as Eudora or Thunderbird.

 

Related Links to reduce getting affected by E-mail Viruses:

• Previous Posts about Getting Infected by Viruses and their precautions @ this blog
• Google Search on Reducing your risk of getting e-mail viruses
• More on e-mail viruses @ Wikipedia
• More on viruses: early prevention and getting rid of viruses