The Metcalfe Society

There are some nasty viruses going around at the moment, a couple of which have been forwarded to the Society via it's members' email correspondence.

However, they can be easily identified and stopped before doing any damage by following a few simple steps :

Emails containing a virus have usually been generated by the virus themselves, and the first clue is that the subject line of the email is something general like "Lose Weight Now", "I saw this and thought of you" or "Let me know what you think". You can usually spot them straight away as they look like 'spam'.

Secondly, the actual body of the email may either be blank, or say something like "Open this file and tell me what you think".

Thirdly, and most importantly, they will come with an attachment, which if you click on the email will immediately open a pop-up window to download a file with a typical extension of (but not limited to) : .mp3, .scr, .pif. IF THIS HAPPENS TO YOU, DO NOT OPEN THE EMAIL OR CLICK "YES" TO DOWNLOAD THE FILE - this is the virus trying to get into your system.

Make a note of who sent you the email, then delete it WITHOUT OPENING IT OR ATTEMPING TO DOWNLOAD THE ATTACHMENT. Click cancel immediately if the pop-up window appears.

Send an email to the originator of the message to let them know that their machine is infected to try and halt them sending it to anyone else.

Invest in a good virus protection software if possible - such as Norton Antivirus - which will scan and delete all future infected emails before they get into your machine.

If you think your computer has been affected by a virus, you can check out the Symantec web site at http://www.sarc.com/avcenter/, which has details on latest virus alerts and removal instructions/fixes.