E-Mail and Viruses

There are hoaxes and then there is the real thing. The real thing is likely to arrive in an e-mail attachment, sometimes unwittingly transmitted by a trusted colleague. The International Computer Security Association estimated in 2002 that 87 percent of all viruses, worms, and trojans are transmitted through e-mail messages.

It's important to be able to distinguish between the hoax and the infected attachment.

Virus Hoaxes

Have you received a virus notice in your e-mail that asked you to delete a file?

This is a hoax, known both as the jdbmgr.exe hoax and teddy bear hoax. You do not want to delete the file. Urban Legends explains why - Urban Legend Zeitgeist: jdbgmgr.exe Virus Hoax .

Everyone who does any e-mail will receive a message like this at some time. Some hoaxes threaten destruction to your computer once you open the message to read it - which you have just done. These messages have subject lines like PenPal Greetings, Good Times, and Dyeenda. Some messages will promise safety if you forward the warning to hapless others. Many people get taken in at least once, and even those wise to these e-mail hoaxes will shudder. Watch out as well for the Nigerian scam e-mails that promise millions and fleece the unwary of their savings.

What to do? Just to be sure, check one of the Virus sites in the right sidebar for confirmation that it is a hoax, or run a search at Google with some of the key terms. Then delete the message. Do not forward to your friends.

Phishing (pronounced as fishing) is a newer form of hoax that is more dangerous and can lead to identity theft. These are e-mails purportedly from a financial institution - quite often your bank, or a payment service - usually PayPal, that trick you into going to a web site to enter a credit card number or other personal information. (Added March 2006)

Beware of Attachments

ALL attachments are suspect. Viruses can reside in attached files - documents, programs, even a Web page with embedded script.

Never open an attachment with the extension .exe unless a colleague advised you in advance that you would be receiving it and why. (Exe means it's an executable program.) Many people were caught in early 1999 with Happy99.exe. This worm gave a fireworks display on the desktop with a finale of Happy 99, and then proceeded to send out e-mail messages.

Less obvious carriers of viruses are Excel spreadsheets and Word documents. The macro viruses that infect the word processor are the most common via e-mail and can do a nasty job of disabling the software. A macro is a mini-program that can be executed in a word or spreadsheet program to do several steps in sequence. A macro virus will do steps you don't want. Melissa was a macro virus that attacked Word 97 and 2000 users. At its worst it would cause the Microsoft Explorer Outlook mail program to send out an infected Word document to names in the address book. At its least harmful, it could cause erratic text in Word documents and lurk to infect a computer with the IE software.

Warning about VBS:

A Web page delivered through email - called HTML email - might carry a virus. The Web page creator can embed VB scripts - bits of program code which could do things to your computer. The risk is low - and it affects mainly users of Microsoft's Outlook Express mail program (Windows).

To prevent it, Windows users can select from the desktop - My Computer > View > Folder Options. Click on File Types - find VBscript and the .vbs extension. Remove it. (More about Script Viruses at Viruslist.com.)

What to do

1. Have your anti-virus software check all incoming and outgoing e-mail.
2. Update the AV software at least once a week. Better yet, schedule it to pick up updates every day.
3. Never open files with unusual file extensions such as exe, .com, .vbs, .lnk, .pif, .scr, .bat.
4. Don't open attachments you weren't expecting.

Where to next?

Are you using the company e-mail account? Do you travel? Are you restricted to only one account at home? You'll be interested in the free Web-based email services.