MalekTips - Email Attachment File Extensions 101

Heard of the "I Love You" virus? Many computer users have, and its name brings shivers down the spines of many computer individuals. If you havent, then you may instead know a friend who received an email with the subject "resume", getting an additional something they werent expecting.
 
As you probably know, you can attach files to email messages. This allows you to write an email message and combine it with a picture of your house, perhaps your favorite song, or maybe even a full-blown application. Doing so allows the receiver to open up the attachment, if they so desire, and view (or listen to) your attached file.
 
This, in theory, is very useful, and proves the collaborative power of the Internet. When used for good, that is
 
Unfortunately, some computer users have found ways to make attachments do very bad things. People have received attachments, that, when opened, have:
 
* Caused their computer to slow to a crawl
 
* Sent their online service passwords over the Internet
 
* Sent dozens, perhaps hundreds of emails to everyone with whom they normally correspond
 
* Corrupted Windows, or destroyed countless files on their hard drive
 
If you didnt know attachments could do these things, or even if you did, Im not trying to scare you into never opening up another file attachment. What I am saying is that you need to be more careful when opening up file attachments, such as perhaps not opening attachments from people you do not know, and you need to have virus scanners (such as Nortons or McAfee) running and constantly updated.
 
Unfortunately, even if you take these precautions, you are not completely safe from the problems that malicious file attachments can cause. Some viruses and Trojan Horses started by attachments cause Email software, such as Outlook, to resend Email messages with your name as the sender. This means that, without anyones knowledge, you could receive an email message that seems to be from your friend, containing a vicious file attachment. Also, some email attachments spread so far and so fast that emails with these add-ons could get to your computer before your virus scanners know about their vicious payloads.
 
Im probably making a lot of people paranoid (sorry!), so Im going to provide hints on how you can protect yourself from such devious attachments. Rather than avoiding attachments altogether, you can, and should, look at the file attachments before opening them and try to ascertain their contents from their file extensions.
 
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