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Is Our Current Email System Better To Email Viruses Or Better To Us?

We all still remember, not too long ago an electronic mail as an exotic phenomenon and not too popular. About ten years ago, placing an email address on a business card was considered ahead of its time. Today a traditional computer electronic email has its rivals in social media and mobile communication. Yet, it is still the most prevalent way to communicate personally and business wise. The numbers of email addresses in existence are estimated in billions.  An original intent was to transmit text electronically, but as we all know, now we can email almost anything including graphics, photos and videos wrapped in html code with fancy colorful fonts. All the capabilities of modern email, I just mentioned opened a world to email viruses taking advantage of the additional hiding spots in the message itself. You can opt to receive just plain text and only worry about possible malicious attachments.

Did Microsoft Encouraged A Spread Of Email Virus?

Originally, almost all computer malware would spread through an email virus targeting for most part Microsoft operating systems, because of its popularity and because of many holes in all its products. A computer virus became then, a constant companion and a threat to all PC users. At first, virus creators wanted to show their programming knowledge and expose the weaknesses of the big companies’ software products. Then there was an individual consumer becoming a victim of cyber theft and a damaged computer.  Now we have a quiet but deadly full-fledged espionage digital war aimed at destroying corporate and government computer networks.

Some of us still remember the Nimba virus in September 2001, which awoke the software industry, by creating a lot of damage on the Internet. Even the computer users that were not hit by the virus, felt its effects, because some services became unavailable. I hope this little history lesson will awake many readers to take their computer security, especially email security very seriously.  Many different types of viruses, mutation abilities and a sheer volume of messages coming at an individual and a corporate user are an everyday concern. The best defense is to have very efficient software tools that have the capabilities to update their database virus definitions automatically.

Email System Basics

To have a better understanding on how to defend ourselves from malware threatening us, lets take a closer look at our email system. An electronic mail works as a client-server relationship, where the client is the email program that we are using to send and receive messages. Our computer plays a role as a local email server hosting our email mail box. There are two major protocols POP3 (Post Office Protocol Version) and IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol). A message is sent using SMTP (Simple Mail Transport Protocol) to the mail server hosting the recipient’s email mail box or a message could go first to the relay server.

What Is A Great Email Security Tactic?

Who is responsible for email security, for protecting your computer system from incoming threats? You are.  Using common sense like not opening suspicious looking messages (define suspicious) or reading messages from unknown sources.  But following this rule you will miss some messages you want and open some you don’t.  There is one more thing, what about self executing messages, you don’t even have to open? Also, you have to be aware of very popular virus types, that use our email address books and using theses email addresses in your incoming email, tricking you to thinking, the message is from someone you know.

What I am about to suggest will make sense to you as a reader of this article, because of your understanding how the email system works.
There is many antivirus programs available to you and some of them will do a decent job, fighting the cyber enemy on your computer systems or networks, but there is a major flaw to this approach. You are fighting the computer viruses on your own turf (your computer). To ward off these demons you must fight the battle on a remote email server, away from your system before they come in contact with you.  This is secret to having an online experience where you control what personal information is shared with other – no someone else.

What programs or tools do you use to combat email viruses?  Let us know in the comments below.

The Dangers of Email Viruses is a post from: Technshare

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