What Are the Dangers of Opening Email Attachments?
The danger of opening email attachments cannot be denied nor understated. Millions of computer virus infections occur each year through email propagation, many of those infections being started through email attachments.
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Safe attachment types
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Email attachments will be of some "file type," such as JPG or DOC or TXT. There are dozens of file types, and, unfortunately, a virus can masquerade as virtually any file type. The only safe file attachment is one that has been scanned with a current virus scanner.
Unsafe Attachment Types
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Unsafe attachment types are: any attachment from someone you don't know; any attachment from "yourself" that you didn't send; any EXE, COM, or PIF file type can be a virus. But they are not limited to these file types! Again, a current virus-protection solution can be trusted for a clean bill of health on an email attachment.
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Email Attachments and Free Webmail
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Many ISPs and Internet directory service websites offer free webmail accounts. These accounts typically include virus scanning of all incoming email attachments,. To be certain, contact the provider's support staff.
Email Attachments and Your Domain's Email
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If you have your own domain (e.g., www.johndoe.com), then you use a web host to make your website and webmail available on the Internet. Check with this company to verify the level of virus protection they provide to webmail users.
Possible Dangers
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Email attachments can contain viruses, and these viruses can potentially take total control of a computer system invisibly, and do anything that an administrator of the infected computer could do. Dangers vary from mild, such computer slowness, to more dangerous, such as spying, key logging and identity theft.
Protection
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Always keep a reputable virus-protection program on your computer, and always keep it up to date. If you use email, and cannot abstain from using attachments completely, this is your only safer option.
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