Windows 7 : Protecting Yourself Against Email Viruses

Most of us haven’t even seen a floppy disk in years, but that didn’t stop the spread of viruses. On the contrary, the Internet’s now firm foothold in the mainstream has been a boon to virus writers everywhere, who happily adapted to the new reality and soon began propagating their malware either via malicious websites or via infected program files downloaded to users’ machines.

However, by far the most productive method for viruses to replicate has been the humble email message: Melissa, I Love You, BadTrans, Sircam, Klez. The list of email viruses and Trojan horses is a long one, but they all operate more or less the same way: They arrive as a message attachment, usually from someone you know. When you open the attachment, the virus infects your computer and then, without your knowledge, uses your email client and your address book to ship out messages with more copies of itself attached. The nastier versions also mess with your computer by deleting data or corrupting files.

You can avoid infection by one of these viruses by implementing a few commonsense procedures:

• Never open an attachment that comes from someone you don’t know.

• Even if you know the sender, if the attachment isn’t something you’re expecting, assume that the sender’s system is infected. Write back and confirm that the sender emailed the message.

• Some viruses come packaged as scripts hidden within messages that use the HTML format. This means that the virus can run just by viewing the message! If a message looks suspicious, don’t open it; just delete it. (Note that you’ll need to turn off the Windows Live Mail Reading pane before deleting the message. Otherwise, when you highlight the message, it appears in the Reading pane and sets off the virus. Click Menus in the toolbar (or press Alt+M), click Layout, deactivate the Show Reading Pane check box, and click OK.)

  Caution

  It’s particularly important to turn off the Reading pane before displaying Windows Live Mail’s Junk E-mail folder. Because many junk messages also carry a virus payload, your chances of initiating an infection are highest when working with messages in this folder. Fortunately, Windows Live Mail is sensible enough to turn off the Reading pane by default when you open the Junk E-mail folder.

  
  

• Install a top-of-the-line antivirus program, particularly one that checks incoming email. In addition, be sure to keep your antivirus program’s virus list up-to-date. As you read this, there are probably dozens, maybe even hundreds, of morally challenged scumnerds designing even nastier viruses. Regular updates will help you keep up. Here are some security suites to check out:

  Norton Internet Security (www.symantec.com/index.jsp)
  McAfee Internet Security Suite (http://mcafee.com/us)
  Avast! Antivirus (www.avast.com)
  AVG Internet Security (http://free.grisoft.com/)

Besides these general procedures, Windows Live Mail also comes with its own set of virus protection features. Here’s how to use them:

Dim objMessage
Dim objConfig
strSchema = "http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/"

Set objConfig = CreateObject("CDO.Configuration")
With objConfig.Fields
    .Item(strSchema & "sendusing") = 2
    .Item(strSchema & "smtpserver") = "smpt.yourisp.com"
    .Item(strSchema & "smtpserverport") = 25
    .Item(strSchema & "smtpauthenticate") = 1
    .Item(strSchema & "sendusername") = "your_user_name"
    .Item(strSchema & "sendpassword") = "your_password"
    .Update
End With


Set objMessage = CreateObject("CDO.Message")
With objMessage
    Set .Configuration = objConfig
    .To = "[email protected]"
    .From = "[email protected]"
    .Subject = "CDO Test"
    .TextBody = "Just testing..."
    .Send
End With
Set objMessage = Nothing
Set objConfig = Nothing