An article in C-Net confirms something I saw first hand last week, the Sober worm is again in full swing. One of the biggest problems with big time proliferation on emails is that it clogs bandwidth, and can consume alotted disk space rapidly as inboxes and sent mailboxes fill. It will be interesting to see how many commercial users return from the four day Thanksgiving Holiday to email systems needing a serious dose of help due to overload. Even more of concern, perhaps, will be the rush of new emails as people return from the holiday, infect themselves and then share the fun in one big rush about mid-morning Monday when they all get back to work.

Some tips for safe email:
1. turn off html formatted email – read your email in plain text only
2. never open an attachment unless you know exactly what it is – resolve any doubt in follow-up communication with the sender before opening it
3. use Thunderbird or another alternative to Outlook or Outlook Express

This article was posted on Saturday, November 26th, 2005 at 8:01 pm