Protect Against Email Viruses

Computers infected by viruses will be disconnected from the Internet and will not be reconnected until they are disinfected. To prevent this from happening, you must take some simple steps:

• Do NOT open unsolicited attachments. You may receive infected messages that appear to come from people you know and these messages may have subject lines and/or messages that look legitimate. If you receive an attachment you are not expecting, we recommend that you confirm with the sender that he/she did indeed send the message and meant to send an attachment.
• Update your anti-virus software. To detect the latest viruses, your anti-virus software must be updated daily. To learn how to install, configure and automatically update anti-virus software, see the OIT Anti-virus Software page.
• Update your Windows operating system. Microsoft distributes updates to its operating systems. These updates will fix security holes or other problems that make a computer susceptible to security breaches. To learn how to update your Windows operating system, see Install Security Patches.
• Use email etiquette. To ensure that your email isn't mistaken for an infected message:
  • Always include a clear, descriptive subject for your email.
  • Consider using a signature, your name & contact information, on your email. To create a signature for your OIT email account go to the UMail Post Office <http://umail.oit.umass.edu/>.
  • Always include a mention of the attachment and a description of why you are sending it in the body of your email.

To date we have not seen any viruses that can send out email messages using signatures or that include more than a few lines of text in the body of the message.