Current News and Personal Opinion is produced
by
John Hardman RPA-C as a volunteer service for Minnesota PA's.
(May 2000) Whoa! If you have not had "The Love Bug" worm infect your
computer, then you are one of the lucky ones, or it could be said, you
are one of the smart ones. Anti virus software is a must, and frequent
updates are necessary to keep you up and running. If you do not currently
have anti virus software, consider Norton
Antivirus 2000.
or McCaffe Antivirus or the Microsoft
Office Antivirus site . Although these products would not have saved
you on the day of the infection, fixes were posted on their web sites within
hours.
Probably the biggest lesson learned from this is not to open email attachments that are not expected by you and described in the body of the email letter to your satisfaction. Only open attachments that are from someone you know and trust and you were expecting.
I would like to remind those members of MAPA that love (pun intended) to send cute email attachments of jokes and other, "got-to-pass-on" trivia, (yes I am guilty too) to cease and desist.
Also, email should be "forwarded," not attached, when sending it along for others to comment on or read. Besides being dangerous as we are all well aware of now, it is tedious to open several email boxes to get to the intended message. So just hit the forward button, and you can safely pass on email without invoking an executable file.
Microsoft, is going to release a fix for Outlook, the main MS email program, that will no longer allow opening attachments unless you designate that it is OK by clicking in a dialog box. Many email clients already have this feature, Netscape Communicator, for example. Go to Outlook 98 Email fix .
Do not set the option for opening any file automatically, in my opinion. Yes, it is a pain to have to give one more click, or response to these questions, but the added security of the step is necessary to protect your files and access to your computer.
Communications, by electronic messaging is a valuable asset that we should be able to utilize to our advantage. Before we attempt to shift our dependence on paper communication over to electronic means, we are going to have to go through a period of learning, what works, and what leaves us vulnerable.
Let me know what you think.