Thank you Ava; I will follow your advice in the future. Doris > From: ava@nackman.com > To: ncdogs@rootsweb.com > Date: Wed, 1 Dec 2010 09:46:08 -0800 > Subject: [NCDOGS] Helpful hints for virus protection > > Hi All, > > Recently I was asked to post a warning about a new, big virus about to hit the internet with an attachment entitled "Postcard from Hallmark". I turned to my husband, asking if he knew anything about the veracity of the warning, and his response to me is below. I thought that this might be more helpful to people than a specific virus warning: > > I generally believe that spreading emails like this is not helpful. There are zillions of viruses out there and people need to be running a legitimate anti-virus program to protect their systems. It is simply not possible for a person to keep up with all of the viruses and what to do or not to do to avoid them. For example, the Microsoft Malware Protection Center (www.microsoft.com/security/portal<http://www.microsoft.com/security/portal>) has a catalog of known viruses. When I search it for the word "hallmark" it comes up with 10 entries. If you run an anti-virus program, you'll be protected from viruses like these. If you try to avoid them all manually, you'll fail because there are too many. > > So, you shouldn't post this and we don't need to warn the kids because they, like you, are running an anti-virus program. If you have people on your list who are concerned about viruses, point them to Microsoft Security Essentials, which is a free, high-quality anti-virus program available from Microsoft at http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials. (Warning: if you search for Security Essentials, you may get other web sites that purport to let you download Security Essentials but actually download viruses themselves - get it directly from the Microsoft web site.) The other advice to give people is to subscribe to Microsoft Update, which is the free service from Microsoft that updates your computer automatically. When new vulnerabilities are discovered, they are eliminated by changes to the software you run, so people who don't let their machines update automatically are more vulnerable. The same is true of the updates from other vendors like Adobe and Java. > > Ava > ************************* > Visit the D-OGS web site: http://www.ncgenweb.us/dogsnc/ > > To Unsubscribe: As a member you are automatically subscribed and remain subscribed. To unsubscribe, email NCDOGS-admin@rootsweb.com with your request. > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to NCDOGS-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message