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Practice Safe E-mail!
Lessons Learned at IMA
The recent rash of e-mail-borne viruses has pointed out that we all are suffering from a new epidemic – one that is threatening the free-wielding Internet as we know it. E-mail viruses are costly to the organization and to the individual – to the tune of millions of dollars and thousands of hours of unnecessary frustration.
Running the ReliaServe hosting facility, we at IMA have had to to be vigilant about all sorts of e-mail crises in recent months. Often, the problem has been that measures taken to avoid spam have blocked legitimate e-mails from getting through. So we consider it timely to share the following common-sense tips. These tips may not save you from an e-mail virus – but if followed they will provide a minimum level of protection and prevent you from disrupting someone else’s busy day:
- Put an explicit subject line on your own e-mail messages, to help the receiver know it's legitimate and avoid troublesome e-mail. Blank e-mail subject lines or ones with cryptic subjects are far more apt to be deleted without being opened. E-mails containing viruses, such as the recent “so-big” virus, often carry innocuous subject lines such as “the file you asked for,” or “your project status.”
- Never open an unknown or unexpected attachment. Nowadays, this is true even if you know who the sender is. Many viruses pick up every e-mail address in a contact list and propagate a virus to everyone on it. Just because it comes from your Aunt Jolene doesn’t make it safe!
- If you receive an unexpected attachment and think it might be work- or fun-related, but you aren’t certain, reply to the sender and ask what you’ve received before opening it.
- Before you open an unexpected attachment, check the suffix of the file. Anything that is a program file should be immediately suspect. Some of the program file extensions to watch out for are *.exe, *.com, *.pif, *.js, and *.vbs.
- Beware of hoaxes. Have you ever been told to delete the teddy bear icon from your operating system, and then to let your entire mailing list know about it? It’s one of many urban legends out there. Check a reputable site, such as http://hoaxbusters.ciac.org/ or http://www.vmyths.com/ before you panic.
- If a piece of e-mail that you know you have not sent comes bouncing back to you as an undeliverable message, there’s a good chance that you have contracted a virus that is quietly distributing itself to people on your contact list.
- Some Internet providers use open-relay and spam filters in efforts to reduce the amount of spam sent to their customers. If your ISP is placed on one of these lists, your e-mail messages may not reach all recipients. E-mail messages that do not pass these filters are usually just vaporized without notifying the sender. This means that you cannot assume Internet e-mail is completely reliable.
- Finally, keep your virus scan software up to date. It’s tempting to click “skip” sometimes when you’re asked to update your definition files – but never wise.
[PRINTER FRIENDLY VERSION]
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