Posted on: Tuesday, February 3, 2004

It's simple: Just don't open e-mail attachments

By Phillip Robinson
Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service

Sometimes there are simple solutions to life's scariest threats.

But we just don't seem to use them. Not enough of us, not enough of the time. Instead, it seems we're always looking for some fix that's more impressive, something that is complex, deep, expensive, advanced, different.

For example, if we would all just wash our hands more often, there would be a big drop in colds, flu, and other infections, saving possibly tens-of-thousands of lives a year, not to mention oceans of money spent on cold medicines and more money lost to missed school and work days.

We wouldn't eliminate the common cold entirely, of course, not just with one simple solution, but we'd cut it down to size at practically no cost.

It's the same in computing. Have you seen the recent reports that Internet worms and viruses cost us about $55 billion last year? That's more money than Microsoft, the biggest software company, and Dell, the biggest personal computer company, made put together.

You know what? With one simple solution, we could save almost all of that $55 billion.

Just don't open attachments.

That's it.

A virus or worm can't get busy infecting your computer and e-mailing copies of itself — along with your private information — out to other computers until open an attachment. Oh, there are a few nasties that can sometimes open automatically, or at least partially automatically, but nearly all require action from you.

For instance, the new "Bagle" or "Beagle" worm spreading around the world this week arrives with an e-mail message that is cryptically short, just "Hi" or even "test :)" in the subject line, with a bunch of random text in the message body.

Ah, but then there's the attachment, a little file with a name that ends in .EXE and that sometimes has a calculator icon.

Until you click, it can't stick.

What about that work document or family photo that arrives as an attachment? Watch out here, too. Remember those e-mail addresses Bagle will suck up from your hard drive? It's going to send copies of the virus to all of those people.

That means any friends, relatives, and colleagues of yours will be receiving a nasty attachment, but from your (presumably seen-as-safe) e-mail address. Which is why this attachment you just received might be an unintended virus from one of your friends or colleagues.

If you think this might be a real attachment from a safe source, make a phone call. Without the phone verification, just delete it.

And you'll be safe, at the cost of just a single click. A simple way to save your own time, trouble, expense, reputation — and $55 billion for the lot of us.