answersLogoWhite

0

What are the risks of opening up email attachments?

Updated: 8/17/2019
User Avatar

Wiki User

14y ago

Best Answer

Rule of thumb... if you don't know who sent you the file... DON'T OPEN IT! These file can contain nasty viruses, spyware, malware, trojans, or worse! These dudes can crash your computer, broadcast your personal info, send messages about you to from the sender, or worse yet... do physical harm to your computer. Do yourself a favor and don't let your curiosity get the best of you. It's not worth the time to "redo" your computer.

User Avatar

Wiki User

14y ago
This answer is:
User Avatar

Add your answer:

Earn +20 pts
Q: What are the risks of opening up email attachments?
Write your answer...
Submit
Still have questions?
magnify glass
imp
Related questions

How can you try reduce the risks of email attachments?

Keep your antivirus software up to date and never open an email attachment unless you absolutely trust the person or company that sent it.


What security measures should you take when opening attachments?

Before opening attachments, ensure that the sender is trusted and the email address is legitimate. Scan the attachment with an up-to-date antivirus software. Consider using sandboxing techniques to open attachments in a secure environment, and be cautious of unexpected or urgent requests to open attachments.


What are the Risks of receiving attachments?

The risks of receiving attachments are that they could be carrying viruseswith them. If you are not sure about an attachment or weren't expecting it make sure you check it out with an up to date virus scanner or checker.


Risks be of downloading email attachments?

Such email attachments can be dangerous as they may contain worms and trojans that can immediately infect computers, once opened by the unsuspecting user. There are a lot of things that one can do to protect his/her computer from the risks coming from email attachments: - Configuring the email client used, to block opening/saving of email attachments that may have risk potential. As an example, Outlook has an option to block email attachments that are potentially dangerous. - Use an antivirus that also has the ability to scan incoming/outgoing email. Norton Antivirus is an example of such product. The antivirus works by scanning incoming/outgoing emails, and in most cases they are able to clean up the message by removing dangerous/infected attachments, and preserving harmless content. It is very important to keep your antivirus updated on a daily basis, so you are protected from the latest worms and dangerous executables that may be sent through email attachments. - Learn about email attachment risks. Keep informed about the latest virus threats that come via email, and how they disguise themselves in order to be opened by the unsuspecting user. - Disable hidden file name extensions on your Windows-based computer. Some attachments may come as exacutables with a hidden extension, like .shs or .lnk for example. A virus may reach your computer as an email attachment with two extensions, for example FILENAME.TXT.shs ; due to the fact that .shs files have hidden extension on Windows computers, the user may try to open the FILENAME.TXT file which may seem harmless, but in fact he ends up executing the .shs binary file and infecting his computer in this fashion. - Pay attention to filenames. There are lots of cases when hidden extensions are used, just like described above. Also, in some cases there are a lot of spaces inserted inside the filename, so the true extension of the file may scroll that much to the right, that we can't see it inside email client. - Do not open any kind of email attachments that appear suspicious. Do not open any kind of executable files that are being sent to you. Some people may send you funny video files or similar things; they may even be your friends, unsuspecting that what they are sending actually contains a virus. Do not send such email attachments to your friends as well. - Do not open email attachments from people that you do not know or you do not trust. - Be aware that there are some files that come as email attachments in the format of zip files or other archives, in orde to trick antivirus scanners from detecting executable content. If you receive a zip file from someone you do not know, you should assume it must be dangerous. - Be aware that Office documents like Excel spreadsheets or Word documents can be dangerous as well. Some people are actually sending emails with Office documents as attachments, even unaware that the documents they are creating and sending to you, are infected by a macro virus, which is a virus written for Office documents, since Office documents can contain hidden programs. To protect from such problems, disable macros in your Office programs. Hopefully, these advices will prove useful to you, in protecting your computer from risks coming from email attachments, in the future. Also try to tell others about the risks


What are the risks of opening an email attachment with a picture?

The riskis of opening up an email attachment with a picture is if you dont know the sender who is sending it that picture could contain malaware keylogger or a virus that is why I would recommend Norton Interent Security or something that scans before you open/download it If you have any more issues please Message us! The risks of Opening an email attachment with a picture are 1.There could be a virus in the attachment 2. Malaware 3. Keylogger 4. Could be a hacker 5. Could have something Inappropiate in it! When opening Piture attachemtns please be careful as this happens quite frequently if your not careful! Stay safe.


What is the postal code used you opening up an email address?

RM18 ...


Why would one use docs.google?

It is a very easy, quick and user friendly way to view documents online, without opening up a new browser. It makes it very convenient to browse through documents you receive in your email because it's so simple to use and view attachments with.


What are the risks of opening up an email attachments?

The risk is the spread of malware. Malware is anything that affects the functionability of your system or executes commands that are not wanted by the user. You can get anything from viruses to trojans to worms, spyware, adware, grayware. The best way to help avoid these dangerous attachments is to really chose your email account wisely. Yahoo is the best free email because it scans all of the files you want to send as attachments and before you open them it scans them again. This helps to stop the spread of email. The next is to use common sense. As your self am I suppose to get this email. also ask your self these questions. was I expecting it, do I know the sender, does me getting it help me in any way and why would I need the email and the attachmentEmail viruses and worms are common. If you've not received one, chances are you will. Here are steps you can use to help you decide what to do with every email message with an attachment that you receive. You should only read a message that passes all of these tests.The Know test: Is the email from someone that you know?The Received test: Have you received email from this sender before?The Expect test: Were you expecting email with an attachment from this sender?The Sense test: Does email from the sender with the contents as described in the Subject line and the name of the attachment(s) make sense? For example, would you expect the sender - let's say your Mother - to send you an email message with the Subject line "Here you have, ;o)" that contains a message with attachment - let's say AnnaKournikova.jpg.vbs? A message like that probably doesn't make sense. In fact, it happens to be an instance of the Anna Kournikova worm, and reading it can damage your system.The Virus test: Does this email contain a virus? To determine this, you need to install and use an anti-virus program. That task is described in Task 1 - Install and Use Anti-Virus Programs of "Home Computer Security."You should apply these tests - KRESV - to every piece of email with an attachment that you receive. If any test fails, toss that email. If they all pass, then you still need to exercise care and watch for unexpected results as you read it.


How do you get two attachments on a handgun in mw3?

You level up your secondary that you want attachments on.


How do you download an email attachment on an iPad?

all attachments, if open-able (so word, excel, jpg, even slides), can be found at the bottom of your email using the on board mail program. When clicked, they should open up after downloading. if they are attachments that can not be opened by the ipad, such as zipped files and .exe, they will not be opened.


How do you stop unwanted email addresses from going into your email address book?

there is a setting in your email account set-up that automatically saves every address when opening email, this was a problem I had and drove me crazy. So...I went to my set-up and and disabled the autosave on contacts. Hope that helps.


Why should you not send large file attachments?

There is no reason why you shouldn't other that many email clients can't accept large email attachments. In that case people resort to programs like SizableSend.com - It lets you send up to 20GB's of files at a time, up to 2GB per file and it's 100% free to use