Comments on: 3 Top Ways People Get Infected by An Email Virus

By: Nibir Farhan

Nibir Farhan — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 09:07:00 +0000

Thanks a lot for your useful article. I am using internet for almost two years and I didn’t even know about macro viruses. I always used to open .doc attachment without any hesitations thinking this wouldn’t contain any virus. but not from now on. I also didn’t have much idea about html virus that you have mentioned. Many like me will certainly be benefited from this article. good job

By: JK III

JK III — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 21:11:00 +0000

Thanks.

By: WendyElf

WendyElf — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 20:06:17 +0000

At my school we teach our 11 year olds as much as we can re. internet safety (especially regarding social media sites – we have just discovered that many of our 9/10/11 yr old pupils have facebook accounts). I feel it is VERY important they are taught internet awareness – and yes, I agree some schools aren’t adapting quickly enough to the electronic age. In my school, I am the only one passionate about ICT – and I have found it is not just my task to teach the children these things, but the teachers too. Most are not computer savvy, and have not had the time, training, interest or understanding to keep abreast of what is going on – they are already so overworked and drowning in often senseless paperwork I am surprised many of them have not imploded….
Personally too, I really do believe that kids brought up now in this digital age are working their brains in far different ways than my generation experienced – the full effects of which we will not see until they are adults.
Elvin – our primary school teaches more than ‘useless stuff’…. trust me…. :). Teaching them tools and concepts yes, but also, how to achieve their full potential as alive, aware, responsible human beings, and how to live on this planet and treat it, and each other, with respect and humanity. (Then hopefully how to set up a blog and write about their experiences!!! Hahahaha)

By: WendyElf

WendyElf — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 20:06:00 +0000

By: Murray Carte

Murray Carte — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 15:43:00 +0000

Never asume you are safe – I remeber visiting my cousins factory. He assumed his production and admin computers were safe, they were on a network, not on the internet. However his sales guy often brought his infected laptop into the office and connected to share files or printers. Every computer there was infected with something.

By: Tina

Tina — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 23:40:04 +0000

JK,

thanks for the input! Regarding your question...

A firewall should prevent access to your computer from outside sources. Hence, it should block everything that is sent through a URL you're visiting. If the script / virus attempts to connect to your computer, the firewall will ask you whether you wish to grant this access. If you confirm, the virus is in.

Anything that is already on your computer should be caught by your antivirus program. However, if you execute a script that is embedded in an eMail, your antivirus program may not catch it, either because it doesn't scan your mail program or because it lacks the necessary virus definitions and doesn't know this virus, yet.

A firewall with strict settings provides an extra safety layer that may be 99% efficient, but it's also quite annoying. It's easier and just as efficient to generally disable HTML / image display in eMails. Then only enable it for trusted sources.

Hope this answers your question. :)

By: Tina

Tina — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 23:40:00 +0000

JK,thanks for the input! Regarding your question…A firewall should prevent access to your computer from outside sources. Hence, it should block everything that is sent through a URL you’re visiting. If the script / virus attempts to connect to your computer, the firewall will ask you whether you wish to grant this access. If you confirm, the virus is in.Anything that is already on your computer should be caught by your antivirus program. However, if you execute a script that is embedded in an eMail, your antivirus program may not catch it, either because it doesn’t scan your mail program or because it lacks the necessary virus definitions and doesn’t know this virus, yet.A firewall with strict settings provides an extra safety layer that may be 99% efficient, but it’s also quite annoying. It’s easier and just as efficient to generally disable HTML / image display in eMails. Then only enable it for trusted sources.Hope this answers your question. :)

By: Tina

Tina — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 23:31:18 +0000

Very good point Elvin. Schools aren’t adapting quick enough to electronic age. Instead of teaching kids facts, they should focus on teaching them tools and concepts.
One of the most important tools today is without doubt the computer and everything associated with it, i.e. internet, social media etc.

By: Tina

Tina — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 23:31:00 +0000

By: Tina

Tina — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 23:26:00 +0000

Belief me, your mom is not the only one. There are plenty people out there who don’t ‘get’ it, yet. Unfortunately, few of them read MakeUseOf. Thank you for forwarding the article! :)

By: JK III

JK III — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 22:26:21 +0000

Common sense is the most important factor. People ignore the warning and proceed to open "new folder.exe" and then blame it on the anti virus. That's why I recommend avast in favour of AVG; it gives you only 3 options when a malware is found: delete, move to chest, block. (I am talking about real-time shield only.) There is no way you can open a malware unless you open the main program window and add it to exceptions. To be honest, recently a virus sneaked through network and infected my computer. But it was my fault that I did not have a firewall; avast free does not have a full fledged firewall.

Now my main question: Will a firewall or anti virus protect me from automatically running, malware infested code (as mentioned in no. 3) or do I have to be extra careful?

By: JK III

JK III — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 22:26:00 +0000

Common sense is the most important factor. People ignore the warning and proceed to open “new folder.exe” and then blame it on the anti virus. That’s why I recommend avast in favour of AVG; it gives you only 3 options when a malware is found: delete, move to chest, block. (I am talking about real-time shield only.) There is no way you can open a malware unless you open the main program window and add it to exceptions. To be honest, recently a virus sneaked through network and infected my computer. But it was my fault that I did not have a firewall; avast free does not have a full fledged firewall.

Now my main question: Will a firewall or anti virus protect me from automatically running, malware infested code (as mentioned in no. 3) or do I have to be extra careful?

By: Elvin

Elvin — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 18:08:00 +0000

Instead of teaching useless stuff in schools they better teach people how to use computers/internet safer. oh wait… they still blame the antivirus.

By: Elisabeth Podair

Elisabeth Podair — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 16:33:00 +0000

I sent this to my mom…the only person I could think of that still wouldn’t know these tips and actually infects my parent’s computer on a frequent basis.