Windows 8 In Depth

Protecting Yourself Against Email Viruses

Computing veterans will remember that way back when the primary method computer viruses used to propagate themselves was the floppy disk. A user with an infected machine would copy some files to a floppy, and the virus would surreptitiously add itself to the disk. When the recipient inserted the disk, the virus copy came to life and infected yet another computer.

Most of us haven’t even seen a floppy disk in years, but that didn’t stop the spread of viruses. On the contrary, the Internet’s now firm foothold in the mainstream has been a boon to virus writers everywhere, who happily adapted to the new reality and soon began propagating their malware either via malicious websites or via infected program ...