If you receive an attachment from a familiar email address, but were not expecting anything, you should contact the sender before opening the attachment. Never open anything that is attached to an email message unless you know the contents of the file. Most users get viruses from opening and running unknown email attachments. How can I avoid a virus infection from email? The safest way to view email messages is in plain text. It's best to limit what HTML is available in your email messages. If your email client allows scripting, then it is possible to get a virus by simply opening a message.
Most viruses, Trojan horses, and worms are activated when you open an attachment or click a link contained in an email message.
Worm virus example for free#
Trojan horses can be included in software that you download for free or as attachments in email messages.Ĭan I get a virus by reading my email messages? A Trojan horse can be a program that purports to do one action when, in fact, it is performing a malicious action on your computer. Worms can also allow attackers to gain access to your computer remotely.Ī Trojan horse is a computer program that is hiding a virus or other potentially damaging program. Worms often spread from computer to computer and take up valuable memory and network bandwidth, which can cause a computer to stop responding. Some viruses are designed to deliberately damage files, and others may just spread to other computers.Ī worm is a type of virus that can spread without human interaction. Unlike worms, viruses often require some sort of user action (e.g., opening an email attachment or visiting a malicious web page) to spread.Ī virus is simply a computer program-it can do anything that any other program you run on your computer can do.
Worm virus example portable#
Viruses used to be spread when people shared floppy disks and other portable media, now viruses are primarily spread through email messages. Some viruses are harmless, others may damage data files, and some may destroy files.