What normally happens is a subscriber's system is infected without them even realizing it. Their email program sends out emails to everyone in their address book without them knowing.

When I get an email that is infected, my anti-virus program, Norton Anti Virus 2002 which I have used for many years, intercepts it and gives me some options to either delete or quarantine.

The regular viruses that I see attached to these emails are:

W32.Badtrans.B@mm W32.Badtrans@mm.enc W95.Hybris.worm W32.Magistr.24876@mm W32.Sircam.Worm@mm

There are other variations of above and a couple other different ones that I receive regularly.

If there is any one thing that you should do if you spend any amount of time on Net and send and receive email on a regular basis is make sure that you have a good anti- virus program. You also have to make sure that you keep it up to date at all times. That is one of reasons that I like Norton, since it automatically updates and keeps me current with protection against latest viruses. I am not a distributor for Norton but I highly recommend it to anyone that asks me. It is not expensive. Their web site is at: http://www.symantec.com/

The important thing to remember is that you can have an active virus infection and not even know it. If you are trying to run an online business and your potential customers are getting virus attachments with email you are sending them, they probably won't be customers for too long.

With many email viruses now active around Net, you should also make it your practice not to open any attachments to an email if you don't know who it is from. Most of email viruses become active when you open attachment. But again to be totally safe you should have a good anti-virus program on your system. You could very well get an infected email attachment on an email from someone you do know since they might not be aware that they are transmitting it. An anti-virus program will give you protection you need.

The Email Hoax Problem

I like this firewall because it is first product of it's kind that actually seems to have been designed for normal human computer users instead of techno-nerds. The product simply installs and runs. You can use it out of box with no configuration at all. The program will ask a few questions and learn from you exactly what is allowed and not allowed. What could be more simple?

This program is one of very best defenses against spyware, which is software that "phones home" every once in a while with information about you. Unlike most other personal firewalls, ZoneAlarm Pro (as well as free version) stops outgoing transmissions as well as incoming ones. This in itself is a major benefit to product.

One of major advantages to this product is way you can configure it to know difference between intranet and internet accesses. That's problem with some competing firewall products - they do not understand that intranet access is always to be allowed while internet access must be controlled. ZoneAlarm made this distinction easily.