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Safe Email Practices.

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Safe E-mail Practices

Over the past few months many people have had their computers affected by problems caused by the unsafe use of email.

Any email message you receive or send which includes an attachment might cause problems. Therefore, try and follow the rules below;

Receiving Email with an Attachment: - regardless of who sent you the email

1. DON'T TOUCH THE ATTACHMENT . Don't open it, don't view it, don't save it to disk.
2. Contact the person who sent it to you and verify they actually sent it to you.
3. Ask them what it is, specifically.
4. If you are at all unsure about it, contact the person you turn to if your computer is acting up. If you're in an office, contact your Network Administrator. If you are at home, contact your ISP (Internet dial-up provider). DO NOT SEND THEM A COPY OF THE ATTACHMENT, describe it to them and then wait until they ask you for it.
5. If all else fails, send a message to Virus@SecurityAdvice.com describing the message you have received. You *can* send a copy of the attachment to this address. The message will be investigated and you will receive a message back from SecurityAdvice.com with whatever information we can get about it.
6. Additional to that add the person to your block list so that you would NOT recieve any further e-mails from the individual.

Sending Email with an Attachment: - remember, you could be sending them a virus!

1. Before you send the message with the attachment, ALWAYS send the recipient a message telling them you are about to send them an attachment. Describe what the attachment is and why you are sending it. Remember, viruses can do this too, so try and include something unique in this message so the recipient will know its from you and not some automated virus.
2. Avoid sending messages with attachments that contain executable code (codes that run things), like Word documents with macros. You can use Rich Text Format, or RTF, instead of the standard .DOC format. RTF will keep your formatting, but won't include any macros. There is, however, a couple of viruses out there that will fool Word when you save as RTF, so while you cannot completely trust .RTF files it is still good practice. This may avoid the embarrassment of you sending them a virus if you are already infected.
3. Run an Anti-virus product, and update it frequently, but don't rely on it to completely protect you. Remember, they can only detect what they already know about. Specifically scan any file you are going to include as an attachment in an email before you send it to someone else.