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Careful With That Paperclip...
The most common is via an email attachment. I'm not aware of any current
exposures in popular email software that allow a virus to spread simply
by opening or reading an email.
But plenty of people are still willing to open anything that pops
into their inbox. Opening an attachment without verifying its contents
with the sender is asking for trouble. Never run a program that you save
to disk from an email attachment without anti-virus protection in place.
The same goes for Word documents, which can have viruses in embedded
macros.
Dubious Downloads
Another common way for a virus or spyware to spread is by
piggybacking on other software that you download. If you just can't
resist the latest toolbar, file-sharing gizmo, coupon dispenser or email
enhancer, you may be at risk. Often these and other downloads come with
malware, free of charge. Running a good anti-spyware program will reduce
your risk.
Just Click NO!
Ever been to a website and gotten one of those "Click here to install
and run {Whatever}" popups? Just click NO! Unless you know for sure that
you need to press OK (such as when downloading security updates from
Microsoft) then treat these popups as threats to your computer.
Sometimes It's NOT Nice to Share
If you are on a network, and you allow your hard drive to be shared
(enabling other network users to read and write your files) then you are
WIDE OPEN to the stupidity of the other users on the network. If any one
of them got a virus, there's nothing to prevent it from copying itself
to your computer via the network share. Unless you absolutely have to
share your hard disk, don't. You can check to see if you have enabled
sharing by right clicking on the drive icon in My Computer, then select
Sharing.
The SneakerNet Menace
And don't forget portable media, such as floppies, CDROMs, and those
nifty little flash drives that connect to a USB port. Assume that any
file you copy from external media could be infected. Keeping your
anti-virus protection enabled and updated should protect you here.
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