What are the dangers of opening email attachments?

The danger of opening email attachments is not denied nor understated. Millions of computer virus infections occur every year through email forwarding, many of these infections being launched through email attachments.

Safe file types

Email attachments will have some "file type", for example JPG, DOC or TXT. There are dozens of file types, and unfortunately a virus can output virtually any file format. The only safe file attachment belongs scanned with an up-to-date virus scanner.

Unsafe file types

Unsafe attachment types are: no attachments from someone you don't know; attachments from "yourself" that you don't send; EXE, COM or PIF files of any type can be a virus. But they are not limited to these file types! Again, a current virus protection solution can be familiar for a persilschein for an email attachment.

Email attachments and free webmail

Many Internet service providers and Internet directory service websites offer free webmail accounts. These accounts are usually virus checking all incoming email attachments. To be sure, contact the provider support staff.

Email attachments and your domain email

Have your own domain (e.g. www.johndoe.com), use a web host to provide to your website and webmail over the internet. Check with this company to check virus protection they provide for webmail users.

Possible dangers

Email attachments can contain viruses, and these viruses can potentially invisible overall control of a computer system, and do what an administrator of the infected computer could do. Dangers vary from mild, such computer slowness to more dangerous, such as espionage, central logging, and identity theft.

Protection

Always keep a reputable antivirus program on your computer, and always keep up to date. If you use email, and can't do without attachments completely, this is your only safer bet.