Even though they lived on opposite ends of the country, Justin and his friend Anna kept in touch regularly through email. One day, Justin received an email from Anna that simply said "check out my pics!" "Such a short email felt strange," he tells us, "but I opened it anyway because I remembered her mentioning something about a family vacation."
The email didn't contain any pictures, but it did install a nasty virus onto Justin's computer. Soon after, Justin's other friends were getting similar emails from him. Some of them got tricked, just like Justin did, and the virus continued to spread.
"If I had just written Anna back, asking if she really sent that mail, I could have avoided this whole ordeal," he says. Up to date virus software would have also caught the virus before it spread, so now Justin checks for updates regularly.
To learn how to protect yourself from malware when using email, see Email - Malware
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