It used to be the only way to get a computer virus onto your computer was to physically download the virus from an infected disc or program. Then computer hackers and viruses makers got wiser and realized that computer viruses and malware could be spread faster and to a wider audience if there was some way to program an attachment onto an email and allow it to spread via an email system. Eventually these hackers and virus programmers figured out how to achieve this feat and the email virus was born. Since then there have been thousands of email viruses created and flying around the world wide web just waiting for an innocent email user to download it.
These harmful viruses can ruin anything from your sunday ticket to your most important data. With all these email viruses flying around waiting to be downloaded, it is important to make sure that you are protected against accidentally downloading any type of email viruses. There are two ways that you can make sure that an email virus will not be downloaded onto your computer.
The first step is to disable any type of ActiveX script or email script from starting on your computer automatically. Many times email viruses are programmed to start downloading themselves automatically through ActiveX script or some type of script. If you disable the script from starting automatically you will be given a prompt asking if you wish to continue with the download. This will allow you to notice if an email virus is trying to download itself onto your computer without your knowledge.
The second step to avoiding email viruses is to make sure that you have some type of good anti-virus program on your computer. Almost all modern anti-virus programs have some type of email checker on them. If they do not, they have a scan option that will scan all downloads you make to your computer and be able to assess whether or not the download could be a virus.