Chain Emails and Computer Viruses
Viruses, Trojans, exploits and other malicious software are only part of the computer security perils of online life. Chain e-mail and Pyramid posts on Usenet are a scam, and most often, they are a crime. Any scheme that involves real mail at any point can be illegal. If you forward one, you will be blasted with hundreds of angry messages in reply. But if you see one, remember that you can?t really be sure who sent it.
Getting a Virus Through Email
You can?t get a virus just by reading a plain-text E-mail message or Usenet post. What you have to watch out for are encoded messages containing embedded executable code (i.e., JavaScript in an HTML message) or messages that include an executable file attachment such as an encoded program file or a Word document containing macros.
Trojan Horse Virus
Anti-virus internet security software isn?t very good at detecting Trojan horse programs, so for the sake of your information security be extremely careful about opening binary files and Word/Excel documents from unknown or ?dubious? sources. This includes posts in binary newsgroups, downloads from web/ftp sites that aren?t well-known or don?t have a good reputation, and executable files unexpectedly received as attachments to E-mail or during an on-line chat session.
Password Social Engineering
As strange as it may seem, one of the oldest tricks in the hacker?s repertroire is what hackers call ˇ°social engineeringˇ±. In other words, conning someone into revealing a password or a credit card number. Beware of email or even phone calls from people purporting to be a systems administrator asking you for your password or other sensitive information. If someone contacts you asking for this information, do not give it to them under any circumstances.
Computer Virus Hoaxes
Hoax warnings are typically scare alerts started by malicious people - and passed on by innocent users who think they are helping internet security by spreading the warning. Do not forward hoax messages. There are cases where email security systems have collapsed after dozens of users forwarded a false alert to everybody in the company. Corporate users can get rid of the hoax problem by simply setting a strict company computer securityguideline: End users must not forward virus alarms. Ever. It?s not the job of an end user anyway. If such message is received, end users could forward it to the IT department but not to anyone else. Home users should become familiar with one of several legitimate web sites that catalog and track virus hoaxes.
Email Password Security
Passwords are the primary defense and front-line computer security for your internet security. A good password is one of the easiest and most effective ways to help secure your system and email security. If someone obtains your password, then they have complete access to your account and all its data, and to all the privileges and abilities you have. If you give your password to anyone, you are giving them significant power while keeping all the responsibility for their wielding it.
Password Creativity
To ensure your email security be creative in your password choice. Here are some other ways to create a good password.
Choose a line or two from a song or poem, and use the first letter of each word. For example, "In Xanadu did Kubla Kahn a stately pleasure dome decree" becomes "IXdKKaspdd." Or, alternate between one consonant and one or two vowels, up to eight characters. This provides nonsense words that are usually pronounceable, and thus easily remembered. Examples include "routboo," "quadpop," and so on. Choose two short words and concatenate them together with a punctuation character between them. For example: "dog;rain," "book+mug," "kid?goat."
Computer Password Security
Your password is key to your online security, and it is only as secure as you make it. In addition to choosing a password that can?t be guessed or found in a dictionary, you need to make sure not to tell anyone your password. If you want to let a friend or family member have access to your computer, set up a separate account for them so they can?t get access to your personal files.
Avoid Automatically Executing Email Programs
Some e-mail or news software has the ability to automatically execute JavaScript, Word macros, or other executable code contained in or attached to a message. If your e-mail software does this you?re looking at a potential internet security disaster. To help preserve computer security you should strongly consider disable this feature.
Think Before you Create your Password
When you are choosing a password to ensure your email security, give the matter some careful thought. The object when choosing a password is to make it as difficult as possible for a cracker to make educated guesses about what you?ve chosen. This leaves him no alternative but a brute-force search, trying every possible combination of letters, numbers, and punctuation. A search of this sort, even conducted on a machine that could try one million passwords per second (most machines can try less than one hundred per second), would require, on the average, over one hundred years to complete.
Macro Computer Viruses
Unlike previous viruses, macro viruses do not infect programs; they infect documents and templates. As part of your email security practice, don?t open unknown file attachments. Opening a document or template that contains a macro virus will infect your system and the virus will spread to other documents and templates you may have on your system. Some macro viruses are not harmful, but they can be annoying. However, there are some macro viruses that can be very destructive. Also, Word macro viruses can be spread across platforms; for example, the macro virus can infect files on the Windows platform, as well as files on the Macintosh platform.