Protecting yourself from email viruses

Email viruses can cause enormous destruction. In order to avoid these kinds of disasters, you need to take active steps to protect yourself against viruses.

Anti-virus software. All OU students, faculty, and staff can download and install Symantec anti-virus software for free from http://itstore.ou.edu. The software is available for both Windows and Macintosh computers.

Protection against new viruses. Since new viruses are created and released all the time, it is essential that you configure your anti-virus software so that it automatically updates. For more information about how to do this, log on to http://support.ou.edu and read the information there (search for "OUvirus").

Attachments. Email viruses almost always arrive in the form of an attachment. You should exercise extreme caution in opening email attachments; if you open a virus-infected attachment, the damage is already done.

Spoofing. In order to fool you into opening an attachment, a virus-infected email will often look like it comes from someone you know or from some other reliable source. It is very easy to forge or "spoof" the sender's name on an email. Basically all viruses use the spoofing technique in order to fool you into opening the email. Even if the email attachment seems to come from someone you know, do not open the attachment unless you are expecting to receive one. If in doubt, contact the sender for clarification.

Network viruses. Note that in addition to viruses that spread through email attachments, there are also some viruses that spread throughout computer networks directly, without email. In order to protect yourself against network viruses, make sure that you have applied all the security patches for your operating system. If you are using Windows as your operating system, you can download and install the latest patches from http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com.