ItsGeekToMe.co

Q: I’m forwarding an e-mail that I received from a relative who is fairly new to the internet, and I’d like your opinion as to whether this would be a valid way to protect an address book.  His question to me…and mine to you…is will it work? 

– Shirley H.
Shalimar, Fla

A: Readers, the e-mail Shirley sent me claims that it contains advice that comes from from “A computer repairman” instructing that everyone should place an entry in their e-mail’s address book containing literally the name “A” and the address “AAAAAAA@AAA.AAA”.  This supposedly provides the following benefits: 

• If your system gets infected with an e-mail worm that sends e-mail to everyone in your address book, it will fail, because “A” (the new first name in your address book) has an invalid address.  The advice claims once it fails, the worm will go no further.
• Since the system will attempt to send an email that can’t be delivered, you will be notified in your Inbox “almost immediately” (in the form of a failed attempt to send an e-mail to “A”) and you can take steps to get rid of the Trojan.
• If everybody does this, you would never need to worry about opening mail from friends.

My answer to Shirley, which I now pass along to all of you, was “no” – that e-mail is bunk from top to bottom.  Putting that junk in your address book does not provide protection.  It doesn’t even provide a little – absolutely NONE at all.  First of all, this advice makes the incorrect assumption that every single e-mail worm works exactly the same.  There is no guarantee that any given worm will stop after an e-mail fails.  But even if they did, the notification that an e-mail has failed is not instantaneous.  Most e-mail worms send out e-mails en masse, and unless you have thousands of contacts in your address book, it’s likely that a worm will send an e-mail to every address in your book before a failure notification could make it back from your e-mail server.   Finally, there is nothing you can do that will protect you to the point where you “never” need to worry when opening an e-mail.  Even the most sophisticated scanning software is not foolproof, so surely a bogus trick using your address book isn’t going to instantly transport you to PC nirvana.

Here’s some REAL advice on how to protect your computer from e-mail Trojans:  Run a quality virus scanner at all times that includes e-mail checking, and keep it regularly updated (all the good ones will do this automatically).  Don’t open e-mails that are unsolicited or that come from people you don’t know.  If you receive an e-mail (even from a trusted source) with an attachment, do not open the attachment unless you know what it is.  Even files that you don’t think of as executable, such as Microsoft Word .doc files, Adobe Acrobat .pdf files, and others, can contain malicious code that automatically runs when you open it.