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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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