Thursday, May 05, 2011

Email Viruses, How to Cope With Them???

Since emails now has become an important method of exchanging information hackers are exploiting it as a new method to infiltrate computers and steal user's personal data and damage hardware components. And the most worrying issue is that computer is safe if it is connected to the Internet.
Note that if a PC is connected to the Internet it is vulnerable to all kinds of computer viruses including Trojans, worms, malwares etc. In this article we will discuss how to cope with email viruses. However, you may always get in touch with a remote computer repair company for availing PC security support.

Let's take a look at what exactly email viruses are. Well, email is now one of the most efficient and fastest communication channels. And it is also the most compelling channels for virus infection. Thousands of computer users become the victim of computer viruses that are sent as email attachments.

How email viruses are spread? Hackers send emails that state the user has won lottery of hefty amount and they ask the user to download the attachment and perform all the formalities. Once the attachment is downloaded viruses that are embedded in the attachment become active and spread over the system. And ultimately the user has to compromise his or her sensitive and important information.

The main problem with email viruses is that before the user even understands what's happening, the charge of the computer is taken over by the hackers. Even those who are using email clients like Microsoft Outlook they can also fall prey to them. What hackers do? They hack the email account password of the user and use it to send emails, with virus attachments to their contacts in order to infect other computers.

Now the question is how to remove email viruses. To fight this email virus menace and protect your computer and data you need to take some important steps. Firstly, you should install an Antivirus software with email scan feature. All the good Antivirus software these days comes with built-in email scan filter. You can install any such program and make sure that the program is updated regularly. In addition, you should also keep the firewall of the operating system always turned on.

You need to refrain from downloading suspicious email attachments, more importantly if it is sent by strangers. It is recommended to download only those email attachments that are sent by a trusted source. Even in that case too check the attachment with the Antivirus software before downloading.

It is also very important to change your email account password & security information on a regular basis to stop the hacker from taking advantage of your account. Only opt for those email services that come with virus & spam filters. Popular email service providers like Gmail or Yahoo! provide strong spam filters. They also run an Antivirus scan on email attachment before downloading.



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