| 13 May 2008, at 2.09 am | Sign In or become a Member to use the Guestbook, Results Exchange or Chatroom |
Viruses, Worms and Spam
Most of us have received all sorts of emails carrying viruses, worms and spam, or attempting to perpetrate some sort of scam. Some of it is extremely nasty. All of it is annoying and time-wasting.
We use mainstream anti-virus software that is continually updated. This cannot guarantee 100% safety, but we do take every care to ensure that we are not a source of infection. If you use the Internet, you must also take responsibility and install anti-virus software of your own.
Like many people, we are not only victims of the such junk mail, but we also receive occasional angry messages from people accusing us of sending out such messages.
We do not use spam. We will only send you an email if we believe you have requested or agreed to us doing so.
If you receive a 'dodgy' email it is unlikely to have originated from us. Recent viruses/worms use a technique called 'spoofing' to make it look as if they have come from somebody else. To do this they trawl through the address books of already-infected systems, pick an email address at random and use it in the 'From' field of infected outgoing messages.
For instance, we received a message this week saying it was from: clrg@eircom.net (the Commission's email address), to webmaster@mcgahanlees.com (us). We don't believe for a minute that this has come from the Commission or even from the Commission's computer system. It has come from an unprotected PC somewhere that happens to have both the Commission's email address and our own in its address book. Not an unlikely situation ...
Realistically, if there is a single unprotected system in the world that has your email address on it, you are likely to be used as a 'spoof' address yourself at some time, and there is almost nothing you can do about it.
The best option is 'do not react'.
Sending out angry emails to the apparent senders of infected or spam emails is a waste of time. Not only are they upsetting for the apparent -- but usually innocent -- sender, they also add to the huge flood of junk mail overloading the Internet.
If you receive spam mail, simply delete it. Invest in anti-spam software if it is becoming a problem. Accept that it is extremely difficult to get at the real perpetrators.
Make sure you never hit 'reply' or 'remove me from your list', as this simply confirms that your email address is 'live'.
Most important of all, buy and install effective anti-virus software and keep it up to date.
