EMAIL SECURITY

I am sure you are all aware of the increasing threat of virus infection that has assaulted the net in the past few months. Most of which are viruses of the worm variety which spread primarily via email messages with attachments. You know, that attachment you just HAD to click upon to see what it was! Well, have I got news for you! The latest variety of malware (virus, worms, etc) do NOT have attachments! Instead the devious authors are embedding codes into the body of the mail so that when viewed the virus is downloaded to your PC! This edition of "RANTS" will deal with security and what you should do to protect yourself and your email communications.

STEP ONE

Make sure you have a good virus scanner installed and that it is up dated DAILY! Notice I said GOOD virus scanner. Now, the difference in the average scanner and a good one is quite simple as far as how this applies to email. The garden variety scanner has an email plug-in that scans your mail as it is opened. The problem with this method is that some viruses will immediately disable the virus scanners ability to detect the virus and it installs itself undetected! A GOOD virus scanner has a personal mail server or mail proxy. This means that your mail is scabbed BEFORE it enters your inbox and the virus is removed before it has a chance to infect your PC. Most of the free virus scanners do not offer this level of protection. The one I recommend if you are using one that does not have a personal mail server is AVAST free home edition. You can download it at http://www.avast.com/i_idt_226.html

STEP TWO

To further protect yourself and others, disable the preview window in your mail client. How to do this varies upon which client you use. This will prevent a virus from loading as soon as you receive the mail in your inbox. Here I will address the most common client which is Outlook Express. Open Outlook Express and go to the word View at the top. Click on LAYOUT and then remove the check block from "Show preview pane". This will leave you with a list of the email headers which tell you the sender, subject, time, etc. of each mail. This enables you to scan the headers and delete any suspicious mail and spam without loading the mail. Delete anything that looks suspect.

STEP THREE

Format your mail correctly! DO NOT use all capital letters or symbols and excessive punctuation in the headers i.e. !!!!!!!! etc... Many spam prevention systems will delete this mail as spam. DO NOT forward mail! When you forward mail you are endangering yourself as well as every other person to which the mail is forwarded. The latest garden variety virus can not only read your address book but, can also read the headers and collect all the email addresses it finds. Hence a mail that is forwarded to someone who is infected simply gives them more names of which to send the virus. Should you wish to share the contents of a mail you receive, take the time to copy it to a new mail or remove the headers from the originating message before sending.

Learn to use BCC! BCC is simply "blind carbon copy". This means that the person receiving the mail does NOT get all the others in the header. Once again this protects your corespondents from spreading a virus via names gleaned from the email header. To view the BCC in Outlook Express simply start a new message, click on view, and select "all headers". Use this line when sending the mail to multiple recipients. Do not however, leave the :To;" line blank. Once again many spam programs will delete this. Instead try placing your address in the "To;" line or maybe your hotmail, yahoo, or other box. This not only ensures you that your recipients are protected but also you are assured that the mail is being delivered.

JUST FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO WON'T TAKE THE TIME TO USE THESE FEW SIMPLE TIPS TO HELP PROTECT YOURSELF AND OTHERS I HAVE A FREE GIFT BELOW FOR YOU TO WEAR EVERYWHERE YOU GO.

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