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More email risks to worry aboutAs many of you know, I look for new risks when using email. The obvious ones are well-known, like viruses and attachments, but there are some obscure ones that I, your email risk collector, have not yet written about. Attachments - With the latest "Love Bug" virus scares going around, people are being warned not to open attachments from people they don't know. Unfortunately, that's a pretty incomplete warning. I grip the steering wheel a little tighter when I hear the reporter on the radio giving this lame advice. Since these viruses are being distributed because your name is in someone's address book, you will OBVIOUSLY know the person who sent you the attachment. Duh. The best advice is not to open an attachment from a stranger AND not to open a useless attachment, such as a holiday greeting, joke, etc. AND not to open an attachment that isn't explained in the message AND not to open an attachment you weren't expecting. For example, let's suppose that Kate (my much better half) sends me an email that says, "I Love You" with an attachment and the accompanying description "read this, you'll like it." I'll write back to her responding with a similar emotion, and asking her what the attachment does. Aside from my being suspicious about the attachment, she frequently forgets that DSL doesn't reach my office at T1 speeds, and I don't want to spend 5 minutes downloading an image of cupid shooting an arrow. Hey, what can I say - I AM the Cynical CIO. Rogue Web sites - The dangers don't stop with attachments. There are more and more fears about Web sites that can do awful things to your computer through security holes in your browser. Now if you're like me, you probably only visit certain well known Web-sites, and don't surf to a lot of mysterious or unknown pages. So if you get an email, again from someone you know, that says, "you should visit this site, it's great!" and you don't recognize it, respond asking them why. More and more companies are putting email and Internet usage policies in place that essentially say that email can be read by management, and is the property of management. Remember that your company may have the policy, which you presumably are aware of, and that your correspondent's company may also have such a policy. So if you send your pal Bob a message that asks, "Did you get that new job yet?", remember that Bob's boss might read that message. A good rule of thumb is to remember that email is NOT secure, is easy to forward, and will likely be read by more than just the person you're sending it to - particularly if it's juicy. So if you write to Bob and tell him that you can't stand that thing that George does with his pencil, you should assume that George will eventually see the message. Either because you accidentally sent it to the wrong Bob, or it gets forwarded to George because Bob likes him better than he likes you. I try to write messages so that they would do no harm if the worst possible person in the world saw them. You want privacy? Use the phone or talk to the person face-to-face. Of course, watch out for bugs and wiretaps.
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