Getting Tough With Virus Assaults

April was a tough month on e-mail users everywhere — every few days, new e-mails were sent to our inboxes from unfamiliar people, often with weird subject lines and unexpected attachments.

We now know that much of that was due to the dozens of variants of two computer viruses, one called MyDoom and the other called Netsky. Literally every few days there was a new version of these threats (and they are still being released at this writing).

May started out no better, although the new virus, called Sasser, does not travel via e-mail at all: If you are running Windows 2000 or above (including XP) and you do not have the proper protection, Sasser can infect your computer without arriving in your e-mail at all!

And although the alleged Sasser author has been caught, new variants by other virus writers are already emerging.

If you haven't educated yourself on Internet security, now is the time — and this article is your starting point.

(Yes, most of the current security threats have targeted Windows PCs because of the large install base, but Macintosh users would be well advised to read on also; several Mac viruses do exist, and virus writers are getting trickier all the time.)

E-mail: Be Very, Very Suspicious

The simplest way to avoid being infected with most viruses is to be very careful with what you receive in your e-mail. A good rule of thumb is never click on an attachment you were not expecting.

Most of the current crop of viruses travel as e-mails with innocuous-sounding subject lines like "Hi," or with interesting-sounding attachments called things like "Joke.doc" or "AnnaKournikova.jpg."

Most virus e-mails will appear to come from someone you do not know — but even if you do know the person, call or e-mail them first to verify that they did mean to send you an attachment.