IM Is A Hot Bed for Virus Attacks

Posted by Ken

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Computer virus hackers, being true to their form, cannot resist the challenge of designing a virus-infected attachment (and the bragging rights that come along with it) and fooling you into clicking on it to infect your computer. IM is ripe for the picking mainly because it’s virtually an unexplored playground for hackers, and users aren’t really keeping an eye out for virus in that arena.

Avoid surprises by not clicking on links from strangers

I’ve read of a situation where this exact thing happened to computer savvy person. Over the course of her IM conversation, the person she was talking to provided her with a link in her IM window. “Hey, check this out! You’ll love it,” the message said. It seemed harmless enough, after all, she had been carrying on a conversation with this person. And like most people, we, as a society, tend to see others as basically good people, so why shouldn’t she click on it?

That’s when things started to go wrong.

She received a large volume of instant messages, and her e-mail address was sent to other people. I can only imagine the amount of spam she received as a result of that one click.

Historically, we’ve all been taught that viruses come in attachments in our inboxes or things that we download. However, when you’re engaging in a conversation with someone via a chat room or instant messaging, it’s easy to understand why your radar may be more relaxed because, well, only the paranoid among us over-analyze things other people say.

That behavior should change. Not that I’m suggesting we forever adopt a life where we are constantly looking over our shoulder because we thought we heard something. Far from it. But we do need to remain at the top of our game anytime we use the computer.

Even if dear old Aunt Sally sends us a photo attachment, we must question whether or not: a) she sent it? and, b) is it virus-free?

So when we IM, where we are more exposed to the kind of people who wish to do us harm, in addition to not having met those people anywhere but online, we need to think twice before clicking on a link that someone gives us.

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