Re: Huge Virus Coming?

[emattson]

Great question since emails are the bad hackers' favorite way to break into other computers.

Two ways emails can infect computers is if someone clicked to open an attachment or clicked a link. These actions may open a software that installs a virus. In these cases, shutting down the computer will not help because the virus is now part of the operating system start up file. Using an antivirus to remove the virus should fix the problem. I use ESET security for both my home Windows PC and work PCs. As long as you set the email software to not allow scripting, you should not need to worry about getting infected just by opening an email. Gmail, and many other email programs are already configured not to run JavaScript or any other script code embedded in emails. Hackers may use emails posing as banks, credit card companies and other legitimate companies asking for private information or passcode.

The best way to deal with spam or phishing emails is to report them, then permanently delete them. Never forward them to anybody, even IT! One COO once did that to his entire company, greatly increasing the risk of someone accidentally clicking that baleful link. A worker chewed him out for that. A better way is to send an image snapshot of the fake email. Gmail, when viewing an opened email, has a dropdown menu, under the more item, that allows the user to block the sender, report spam or report phishing. Good sites for email security basics are:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/securit ... l-security
https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/ema ... -security/

Hope these are helpful.