Be Internet Savvy

• If a message 'pops up' on your screen: Before you act on it, be sure you understand where it is coming from, and that it is asking you to do something that legitimately makes sense. Many malicious softwares bring up messages that 'sound good' before doing their nasty things - You have to avoid acting on these.
  
  
• If an offer on the Internet sounds to good to be true, it probably is.
  
  
• Avoid replying to or acting emails that are prompting you for some sort of immediate action required: Unless it is something that you are aware of, it is likely a virus trying to install itself on your system or someone 'phishing' to get your personal information or passwords.
  If you think it may be a legitimate issue relating to a service to which you subscribe: DO NOT CLICK THE LINK IN THE EMAIL, rather open your web browser and manually navigate to the authentic site before logging in to to ensure you are being directed to the correct site, and then verify that the concern is ligitimate.
  
  
• If you get unsolicited junk mail in your inbox, and it says that you can remove yourself from the mailing list by replying or visiting a web page somewhere:
  Unless it is a subscription that you previously requested DON'T DO IT! - You will just be giving a confirmation to the sender that they have a valid email address for you!
  If on the other hand you start receiving undesired promotional offers after ordering through an online retailer, then this unsubscribe option may be a worthwhile opton.
  
  
• Never open email attachments containg executable programs: In Windows these would include file names ending in .EXE, .COM, .BAT, .MSI, .SCR
  These are dangerous as they contain running programs that install themselves on your computer. Computer viruses may mail such file types out and attmpt to entice you to open them, claiming to offer a video file or photos or music or some other interesting thing - There is no reason that this kind of media should arrive in one of these file types.