Email Virus Alert

(March 4, 2004) Computer hackers and vandals and their viruses are becoming more and more adept at simulating messages to appear to the recipient as coming from familiar people and organizations. This practice is called "spoofing."

For example, we recently received an email message claiming to come from "The Larchmontgazette.com team" that invited the user to try an "anti-virus tool" that was attached to the message. The so-called "Tool" was actually a virus, which was stripped from the message by our antivirus software. A variant of the "Bagel" virus, this one just started appearing on the Internet yesterday (March 3, 2004). You can read more about it here.

There are several lessons from this experience that we want to pass on to our readers.

1. Install and maintain a reputable anti-virus program, purchased from an authenticated source, and activate the anti-virus scanning program offered by your Internet Service Provider on its mail server. This provides two levels of protection -- what the ISP's program doesn't catch, your desktop software will probably detect. Remember, you must continually update the "virus definitions", since hackers keep coming up with new viruses.

2. Be suspicious of all attachments, especially any attachments that have endings like ".exe" which means that the attachment is a program that will run on your computer. Make sure that the sender really emailed you the attachment, and that the sender knows what it contains.

3. Be cautious of email messages that claim that you have a problem on your computer or network, recommending that you install programs or erase files. Take the time to authenticate the source and check out the claims and recommendations.

4. Be assured that the Gazette will never send you an email message recommending a product or suggesting that you install an attachment. When we have technical advice, we will provide it in an article posted on the Gazette website, we'll offer choices and reasons, and if we discuss software applications, we'll provide links to the authentic source of the program or service.

It is unfortunate that the benefits of computer and Internet technology are accompanied by risks brought to you by software viruses and computer hackers. However, reasonable precautions can go a long way to reduce the risks.

Judy and Paula

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