Harmful Emails

Since email is so popular it is the main method used for spreading computer viruses and worms. The ways these are spread are through the email’s attachments. These attachments can be very misleading so if you’re suspicious or don’t have a good security system you definitely shouldn’t run it. The way a worm works is when it’s in your system it is able to self replicate, these worms can send emails to addresses that they acquire from the computer its infecting, and their file is usually around 150KB in size. An email virus is usually some sort of computer code that when activated will have a very harmful effect on your computer. Sometimes these viruses are even distributed by email worms. Some of the harmful effects would be they can corrupt/delete data, steal data, use your computer to harm a website. They can also destroy your reputation if the virus gets into your address book and forward itself to people you know. Some viruses that place a Trojan horse on your computer could also let the person who wrote the virus hijack your computer and use it. A Trojan horse is a form of malware that usually appears as a useful application, but is very malicious. I know there are three different types of Trojans, they can be a keylogger, backdoor, or a IRC Trojan. Unlike a worm a Trojan does not replicate. There are also two distinct parts to a Trojan the client and the server. Keyloggers are used to give the hacker your passwords. Remote access ones (backdoor) will allow the person to have total control of the person’s computer. A IRC Trojan uses the computer as a botnetwork that is controlled by IRC. I personally have never had any problems with any viruses or worms. Also I must say email attachments are not the only way you can get one of these you have to be careful what you download and be careful with removable media since they are usually not scanned. To prevent these things you need a good anti-virus progam, a good firewall, isolate any infected computer, consistently update your anti-virus programs, and scan any email attachment. The anti-virus I use right now is Norton anti-virus and the firewall I use is Zone Alarm. These are two programs I highly recommend. A cheaper but still highly effective alternate I recommend is Kaspersky.

Here are some of the settings I have. Norton is very customizable.