Guidelines for Virus Warnings and Virus Prevention
(Microsoft Windows users)
There have been many virus warnings circulating via email. Most of these have been hoaxes. It is best not
to circulate these emails, and instead look at a reliable source.
Symantec's site
contains an encyclopedia of known viruses and hoaxes.
Please note that few viruses can actually damage a computer's hardware, just the software and data on it.
Viruses are mostly executable files, so they cannot damage a system unless they are executed. There are known
security holes in Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express which allow execution without running the attachment.
There are patches and updates for these, please see
Microsoft's site.
Javascript can be inserted in HTML email. This gives power to the email sender that you may not know about.
Only a few email programs allow Javascript in email, and it can usually be turned off.
In general it is best not to send executable attachments with emails, and not to run them either.
When opening Microsoft Word documents it is best to disable macros, then check the macros to see that they are helpful.
Another idea is to backup normal.dot, the standard template that comes with Word. Many of the macro viruses change it.
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