There has been a lot of material discussing viruses
proliferating across the Internet. A great many of these viruses are transmitted
through email attachments. There is only one sure way to stop your computer from
getting infected with a virus: Don't open potentially harmful attachments.
It's really that simple. If you don't open the attachment, it can't infect your
system-but how can you tell the infected ones from non-infected ones? All you
have to do is look at the attachment's filename before opening it. All files
have some name to start with, followed by a dot and then the three letter
extension. The three letter extension is what give you the warning you need. It
is the three letter file extension that illustrates what type of file format
that file is.
All .jpg and .gif files are images. Images rarely contain viruses. An .exe file
on the other hand is a program. If you receive an email with an .exe attachment,
you can almost be sure that it is a virus. The same applies to extensions like .vbs,
.bat, .pif, and .com. Most viruses use your address book to distribute
themselves so you are much more likely to get a virus from someone you know than
from someone you don't. Good sound advice is to not open email attachments with
file extensions that are suspect. Below is a list of potential threats, if the
files arrive through your email.
