newbie"wanna be geek"

hi all, what a great forum! I always have so many questions and now have a place to come. Anyway, very new to computer stuff and lingo..wasn`t sure where to post this but here goes a question: I received a e-mail (bulk) from someone I have never gotton mail from before, but recognized their address. The mail had an attachment that said detailed.scv., I did not open it. Has anyone heard of this? Trojan, virus? Just curious.
Thanks

 

if you did not expect it then don't open it. Delete it. If you get screen savers like that in the email, it's 99.999999% of the time a virus / worm or trojan.

proceed to the delete button on your keyboard and welcome to Major Geeks

 

If you didn't request the file then don't open it.

 

Which brings up a question I've had for a while....

everybody (media,etc) says not to open an attachment unless you know the person it came from. But since viri get their new addresses from people's address books, wouldn't you ONLY expect to get viri from people you know?

 

well, what people say is "call the person and see if they ment to send you the attachment"

well that is my definition of over-protective, while it works most of the time, i still would never, ever, call someone and see if they ment to send me the attachment.

basically common sense is the best way to tell if they ment to send you the file, if you get a .BAT file from someone who doesn't know anything about computers, then you are almost guaranteed it is a virus (*cough*dad gave me sircam.mm this way*cough*). there are probably more, but some of the *possible* dangerous file types are: exe, doc, scv, bat, pif, com, cpl, vbs, etc.

but if you know alot about computers, and the email says "check out my picture!" and its a .exe file, 99.999999% of the time it is a virus. the most probably solution is to update your anti-virus software DAILY, and run a scan on any attachments before opening. Keep in mind this still does not guarantee 100% protection, but then again, nothing does.

 

Actually it's more about expecting the attachment rather than recognizing the person who sent it. My dad sends attachments all the time without any text in the message body, and I don't know what they are, so I never open them. (They are usually just lame jokes and stories) I've told him not to send stuff as attachments, but rather to embed it in the body of the message, but he doesn't listen.

Anyway, the best way to deal with attachments is to email the person who you think sent it, and ask them if they sent you something. Don't reply to the email, just send a new email regarding the one you received; you wouldn't want to send them a virus that they might open!

And request that they not send things as attachments if possible.

If I have to send an attachment, I usually send 2 emails, one right after the other: One that says, "Hey I'm going to send you this attachment about (fill in the blank") and then a seperate email that says "Here's that attachment about (fill in the blank) that I told you about" That way they'll know it's legit.

 

You are right Kat. This a great forum. Not only are the people on here knowledgable and cooperative. You'll generally get feedback in a few minutes. As for your question, They prob gave you enuff info but wanted to say that always scan email and then scan attachments. I have always opened attachements and emails from known senders but ALWAYS scan first. So far no viruss that I know of. Also have anti-virus and firewall running.

Strange1