How do I protect myself against computer attacks/ Viruses

No one technique offers complete protection against computer viruses. You can, however, take several steps to protect yourself from viruses carried by e-mail:

• Know where your e-mail is coming from. Be especially careful of e-mail from unknown sources.


• Be careful of attachments to your e-mail. Be especially careful of executable attachments that end in .exe, .pif, or .vbs, among others, and never open attachments that you aren't completely sure about.


• Make sure your e-mail software is NOT set up to automatically download or install e-mail attachments.


• E-mail addresses can be spoofed, which means they can appear to be sent from a different address than they really came from. Don't automatically trust e-mail from any address you recognize.


• Install virus scanning software on your computer, and keep it updated.


• Make sure your computer's operating system is up to date with the latest security upgrades.


• And in case the worst happens and your computer is infected, make sure you have backups of your data files.