I recently opened an email sent by a friend on FaceBook and as a result got a virus that wiped out my entire hard drive.
The friend DID NOT send out the email. Instead, her email account was hacked and all of us who are in her friend’s list got an email that looked as if she had sent it. Those of us who opened the email and followed the link “See my newest You Tube video” seemingly got the virus.
Here’s the scary part. I had no idea that I inherited a virus. In fact, I have a number of software solutions that check for viruses and never alarmed me. It wasn’t until about a week later that it became clear that something was wrong. My email server started sending me hundreds of “bounce back” emails addressed to recipients I did not know and to whom I certainly did not send.
As I pursed the problem further with the company who hosts my email, it became clear that my email password had been hacked and someone was indeed using it to send out messages to the world. And by the end of the day (actually after several days) I was left having to explain to my server the 100,000 outgoing emails that I did not not send, did not authorize, and addressed to recipients that I do not know. Thankfully, the company who hosts my email understood and didn’t hold me accountable.
Okay, so here’s my advice.
1) Create a very strong password before emails can be sent on your server. In my case I must admit that I used a weak password (six letters only) and it didn’t guard me, so be sure that your password includes at least one capital letter and several figures like “@ % # !” and so on.
2) Install a good email virus scanning software.
3) Use extreme caution when opening email from unknown senders.
4) Beware of following email links that want to watch a You Tube video.
