It is important to have and up-to-date virus protection program running on your computer, but often viruses do their damage when they are very new -- before the virus protections programs detect them. There are some habits of using your computer that can help protect you as well. Following is a discussion of what I do and why.

1. Be cautious in opening attachments to email messages. How? Background info: File types
2. Make sure that my email program doesn't automatically open any attachments. Discussion
3. Have updated virus protection programs running. Discussion
4. Practice responsible behavior about sending attachments to email messages. Discussion
5. Consider when to be cautious in downloading files from web pages. Discussion
6. Other possible problems related to security. Discussion

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Last updated May 7, 2000. Mary Parker. Previous version of these pages.