Trojan Virus Attached in an Email

Yesterday my colleague called me regarding his PC that was infected by a virus. He said it mentioned about Trojan. One of the chef’s working with him in their restaurant asked him to use his PC for a while to check his email. When the Chef opened his email, he saw an email from his friend with an attachment that he opened right away. Unfortunately, the attachment contains a zip file with a virus in it.

When he opened the attachment he was asked to run it, which he did, then the problem started. It showed a program running and scanning his PC and it didn’t let him do anything. After the scan, it showed a result saying that his computer is infected by a Trojan virus and he needs to run a fix using the same program. So he did run it and end up infected by a Trojan Virus.

Actually, most viruses of this kind uses this trick to make the computer user think that he is infected by a virus but in reality the program saying that you are infected is the actual virus and if you run it you’ll end up infected.

I listed some of the ways of avoiding this kind of problem.

•   Always make sure that your antivirus is updated whether it is a free version or whether you purchased it. (Note: If you purchased your antivirus make sure it’s not expired. There are free versions of antivirus that doesn’t expire like AVG.)

•  If you received an email from someone you don’t know, think twice before opening it because it might contain a virus.

•  If you receive an email from someone you know and it contains an attachment. Check whether the attachment is ending with .exe, if it does don’t run it. Delete it right away. Most viruses from email are in exe format. Sometimes it is in a zip file. When you unzip it then you will see the .exe file extension.

•  Sometimes there are email containing links that points to an unknown site, don’t click on the link even if it was sent by someone you know because it might open up a file that contains a virus.

• Apart from using the email, inserting flash drives and external USB hard drives can also infect you computer with a virus. Make sure that you scan it first before opening or viewing the files in it.

Always be cautious with everything you run and install in your computer.

Always remember Benjamin Franklin's quote "An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure".