Viruses in Email
There are a number of strategies you can use to avoid picking up a virus via Email.- The only notifications you will ever receive concerning your mail account at Zarquon or at a domain hosted by Zarquon will come from peed, andyp, or kraus at zarquon.net (or zarquon.org) -- not "staff", not "admin", not "support", not anything else. Mail from this type of generic address at Zarquon is bogus and likely to be bearing a virus; do not open the email or follow the link inside.
- The one exception to the above rule is that there are certain administrative messages that come from the mailing list manager at Zarquon. They will have a From: address of listname-owner.
- Most mail readers can be set up to not open attachments automatically. If your mail reader is opening attachments automatically, turn that setting off.
- Do not open attachments from anyone you don't know.
- Do not open attachments from people you do know if you're not expecting an attachment from them.
- If the subject or text of the email is gibberish, or real words arranged into gibberish sentences, you don't want to open the attachment or follow the web link. Really.
- Some viruses masquerade as email to you reporting an undeliverable document or message. Look at the 'From:' line and see if it makes sense. If your initial reaction is "I didn't send anything there!" chances are that you didn't, and that the attached "message" or "document" is actually a virus.
- If an email offer seems too good to be true, it probably is. Don't open any attachments or follow any web links associated with those emails.
- It is becoming more and more common to see statements within mail messages which claim that the message and/or attachment has been scanned and found safe by this or that anti-virus scanning software. Many of these statements are legitimate. However, before opening the attachment, keep in mind that:
- Just because an email SAYS it's been scanned by some anti-virus package doesn't mean it actually HAS been scanned.
- Anti-virus software can only detect viruses that it KNOWS about. New viruses will not be detected by an anti-virus scan until the scan engine has been updated with the definition of that virus.
- Many anti-virus software packages cannot handle passworded zipfiles (compressed files). Some viruses are spread as passworded zipfiles sent with the password in the body of the message.
- Links that say "click here to remove yourself from this mailing" or some such are generally bogus. Ignore them; all they do is verify that your email address received their spam.
In either case, if there is ever any question or concern about an email you have received from Zarquon, do not hesitate to contact me.