Opening certain attatchments

[Paracab]

Occasionally I receive an email with an attachment - I click the attatchment and I get a list of programmes with which to open it - however at this point I do not normally know the nature of the attatchment and therefore do not know which programme to select, or indeed if I have the programme in the first place. I'm sure this is a trivial issue,

Any advice appreciated,

Cheers PC

[Naples Air Center, Inc.]

Paracab,

First off which Operating System are you running? Then which Email Program are you using?

Then which types of attachments are you talking about?

.exe
.jpg
.gif
.doc
.txt
.htm
.pdf
.dll
.pif
.sys
.mov
.mpg
.avi
etc.

Some can carry viruses, others cannot. It is very important to know what can and cannot carry viruses before you go opening attachments.

Take Care,

Richard

[BOAC]

Heed NAC's warning, paracab! This is FAR from trivial!

You DO have an updated anti-virus programme running, don't you.....?

AS NAC says, if you do not know the nature of the att., better not to try to open it until you do.

PS. If it comes from an unsolicited source, do not email the source back asking for more info, as this validates your address to a potential spammer. If it comes (apparently!!) from a 'friend', beware if you are not expecting it.

In that situation, I always click on the attatchment, select 'save to disk', and run it through my virus checker BEFORE opening. You'd be surprised at what viruses some of the attachments carry!! I am not aware of any virus that can execute simply on a 'save', but am willing to be corrected there (and to change my procedures!:O )

[Naples Air Center, Inc.]

BOAC,

You are correct. Saving a file will not launch a virus. I do the same as yourself, I save the attachment to my desktop and then scan it before I open it. (Since I do not have an Antivirus program on my computer, I just run HouseCall scan of my desktop.)

Take Care,

Richard

[Mac the Knife]

Honest, I'm not getting at you Paracab, but it's sort of amazing that there are still plenty of people around who are quite happy to open attachments blindly.

These days this is the way most worms and virus get onto folks systems and the dangers of opening unknown attachments has been so widely publicised that one would think that almost everyone was aware of it.

But you're in "good" company - a recent survey of office workers http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/35393.html showed that 2/3 "are not aware of even the most basic virus prevention measures".

BOAC's advice "...click on the attatchment, select 'save to disk', and run it through my virus checker BEFORE opening" is sound.

Attachments with the .com - .exe - .pif - .bat - .scr suffix are always viruses unless you're actually expecting them. Attachments with the .gif - .jpg - .jpeg - .txt - .doc - .pdf may be safer, but virus writers often disguise a viral executable by giving it a double extension, ie readme.txt.exe - by default Windows suppresses the .exe part so that the reader sees it as just readme.txt opens it and baboooom!

Despite having a hardware firewall and good AV protection I just junk anything that doesn't look totally kosher without investigating further. Suggest you do likewise. Virus writers rely on "social engineering" techniques to make things look interesting and persuade you to open them out of curiousity - and curiousity kills more than cats....

[Paracab]

OK guys, here goes...

First of all I have only had a computer and internet access for a matter of months and am completely self taught - hence I am not as up-to date on some issues as some of you fellas.

Secondly emails with attatchents are generally always from friends, and, I am expecting them.

My operating system is Windows 2000, with BT broadband, as for the email programme I am running, I am just using the email setup provided by BT.

Anti-virus protection - Ah, well - some guidance would be appreciated...! (no problems for past three months)

The main problem though is that I try and open an attachment and I get a message that windows was unable to open the attatchment...

Please bear in mind that its easy IF YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO, I'm getting there, with your advice it should be easier !

Thank you all :ok:

[Smedley]

By all means, be sure you have the very best firewall protection, or you will end up with nothing but headaches.

The voive of experience. The internet is full of sicko's getting their jollies this way.

[Naples Air Center, Inc.]

Paracab,

The way most viruses propagate is by going to the infected computer and collecting all the addresses in the infected computer's address book. Then they go though all the emails ever sent or received on the infected computer and collect all those email addresses.

Then the viruses, send an email to each of those collected email addresses along with a copy of the virus attached to the emails.

So do NOT trust anything you get from a friend. Be suspicious of everything!

Take Care,

Richard

P.S. You still have not told us the extension of the file you cannot open.

[RomeoTangoFoxtrotMike]

Paracab,

Secondly emails with attatchents are generally always from friends, and, I am expecting them.
As Richard has explained, these are the most dangerous, precisely because you are, to some extent, expecting them... :rolleyes:

If you are using any of the Outhouse, sorry, Outlook family of products from MS, please ensure that you have all the security patches installed.

Better still, install Mozilla Thunderbird (http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird/) or Quallcomm's Eudora (http://www.eudora.com/) which, although they will not make you impervious to email viruses, will make it orders of magnitude more difficult for them to infect...

[Saab Dastard]

Paracab,

I assume that your computer is directly connected to the BT ADSL device without any intervening firewall / router.

If you are, and are not running a personal firewall - e.g. BlackICE defender, ZoneAlarm or similar - your computer is completely open to the internet and to those who would abuse it.

Your computer may even now unwittingly be taking part in a spamming or denial-of-service attack as a "zombie", controlled by a remote computer hacker. It could be being used as a file server, the contents of which files you would not want to know.

For your protection and the protection of others with whom you exchange information, please get yourself a hardware or software firewall and an AV program with regular (at least monthly, preferably weekly) updates.

I use BlackIce with a Netgear firewall, together with Sophos, updated weekly - or sooner if I read of any new virus (OK, I'm lucky, I get Sophos through work). I also use AdAware and SpyBot.

Please forgive me if you have already implemented the above, I'm not having a go or accusing you or anything, just pointing out the dangers of permanent IP connection to the internet, and the responsibilities that go with the benefits and convenience of Broadband.

Safe surfing,

SD

[Mac the Knife]

Hi Paracab - I do hope my remarks did not offend you, for such was not the intention.

For a simple one-stop solution I would suggest that you go to http://www.symantec.com/product/index_homecomp.html and consider downloading Norton Internet Security 2004 - that'll give you antivirus and a firewall plus a few other non-essential goodies. It is probably the simplest system to set-up and works well. At $69.95 it isn't cheap, but that's how life goes.

There are a variety of other commercial, "free" or semi-free mix-n-match solutions out there but they are all harder to configure for a newbie.

Welcome and good luck.

[Paracab]

Thanks for all the advice so far - I intend to establish adequate virus protection asap.

I wasn't aware of what could possibly be going with my computer without me even knowing about it and I am amazed that broadband service providers do not insist on you having adeqaute protection before you have broadband.

Mac, no offence taken - and thankyou for your input :ok:

[Naples Air Center, Inc.]

Paracab,

Till you get yourself setup, a good scan by:

Trend Micro's HouseCall (http://housecall.trendmicro.com)

Followed by a scan with:

LavaSoft's Ad-Aware (http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/)

Would help you keep Viruses and Malware in check.

Take Care,

Richard

[Saab Dastard]

Hi Paracab,

Good luck with your defences!

I wasn't aware of what could possibly be going with my computer without me even knowing about it and I am amazed that broadband service providers do not insist on you having adeqaute protection before you have broadband.

When I had Broadband installed (not BT, btw), the company would not install the connection and cable modem without a PC to connect and "test" the internet connection. They would not install and then connect to the firewall / wireless AP / switch I had ready. They coc*ed up trying to get a USB - Ethernet connection to work (I was at work, unfortunately) despite being given instructions to use the (obvious) ethernet cable left dangling for the purpose, necessitating the removal and re-installation of the TCP/IP stack by me later that day.

When they returned to try again, I had set up a "sacrificial" W2K desktop for them, which (to be fair) they completed the installation on. But that PC was well and truly compromised once it had been on the internet unprotected for a few hours!

So do not hold your breath for the ISPs to insist on security. Shoelaces appear to be a challenge for some of their operatives.

Somewhat jaundiced,

SD