Be careful of incoming email. Many people send email which is
designed to either ruin your computer by deleting or changing files or
tie up your email program and network by flooding it with mail traffic
sent from your email address.
Be extremely wary of email which has a file attached. Do not
open the attached file!!! Delete the email from your Inbox and
then delete it from your Deleted Mail folder. Only open the
attachment if you recognize the sender and the context of the email is
appropriate.
Some Warning signs
File Attachments with the extensions .exe, .vbs, and .bat in
their filenames. These are most dangerous. Do not open
the file unless you are extremely confident that it is a legitimate
file. These types of files are executable i.e. they do
something.
Email from someone you do not know which has an file attached.
Email with an attachment from someone you do recognize.
However, the context or timing is inconsistent with your
relationship.
A warning from your company's IT department or other trusted
authority of a problem email in circulation.
Email from an international address.
I received the email above today and I feel it very dangerous:
I don't recognize the sender. The sending address is
egrow@prodigy.net.mx
It's from Mexico where no one uses any of my personal
email addresses.
Notice the checkquotes.doc.bat filename. It has a
.bat extension; hence, it's an executable program.
I did not open the attached file. I deleted the email from
both my Inbox and Deleted Mail folder to completely remove it from my
comptuer.
