What are the risks of opening up an email attachments?

Answer 1

The risk is the spread of malware. Malware is anything that affects the functionability of your system or executes commands that are not wanted by the user. You can get anything from viruses to trojans to worms, spyware, adware, grayware. The best way to help avoid these dangerous attachments is to really chose your email account wisely. Yahoo is the best free email because it scans all of the files you want to send as attachments and before you open them it scans them again. This helps to stop the spread of email. The next is to use common sense. As your self am I suppose to get this email. also ask your self these questions. was I expecting it, do I know the sender, does me getting it help me in any way and why would I need the email and the attachment

Email viruses and worms are common. If you've not received one, chances are you will. Here are steps you can use to help you decide what to do with every email message with an attachment that you receive. You should only read a message that passes all of these tests.

1. The Know test: Is the email from someone that you know?
2. The Received test: Have you received email from this sender before?
3. The Expect test: Were you expecting email with an attachment from this sender?
4. The Sense test: Does email from the sender with the contents as described in the Subject line and the name of the attachment(s) make sense? For example, would you expect the sender - let's say your Mother - to send you an email message with the Subject line "Here you have, ;o)" that contains a message with attachment - let's say AnnaKournikova.jpg.vbs? A message like that probably doesn't make sense. In fact, it happens to be an instance of the Anna Kournikova worm, and reading it can damage your system.
5. The Virus test: Does this email contain a virus? To determine this, you need to install and use an anti-virus program. That task is described in Task 1 - Install and Use Anti-Virus Programs of "Home Computer Security."

You should apply these tests - KRESV - to every piece of email with an attachment that you receive. If any test fails, toss that email. If they all pass, then you still need to exercise care and watch for unexpected results as you read it.

Answer 2

What are the risks to open an attachment?

The main problem with emails comes from using email attachments.

While email attachments represent a useful addition to email functionality, as a way to send files via email, they are also risky due to the fact that email attachments can contain not just documents, but also binary attachments like executable files. Such email attachments can be dangerous as they may contain worms and Trojans that can immediately infect our computers, once opened by the unsuspecting user.

Although very many email attachments might naturally simply comprise harmless stuff like your friends' photo, the newest music from your preferred band, or spreadsheet reports from your fellow workers, email attachments might come as well with things that may possibly harm your PC. Spyware and viruses are one of these things.

Each day, individuals in the internet community come upon new worms, viruses, and Trojan horses packets that are destined by malevolent hackers to harm your PC.

Such programs generally bond themselves to unidentified files that are transferred to your inbox, and at the time of opening them, you are frequently not aware of the fact that you may already be triggering some harm to your system.

Answer 3

the risk of opening or receiving email attachments is that it can delete your things and send your personal details else where or even delete them

tomitola is a good techer

Also, there are problems like phishing, trojans and viruses. Phishing is where a person sends you an attachment that is set to get your account information, meaning the sender can hack all of your accounts and steal your money and identity. Trojans are a certain type of virus that causing pop-ups to crash your web browser or cause your system to malfunction. Viruses are carried with any type of file extension and, when clicked, cannot be stopped.

Answer 4

Most e-mail providers have built into anti-virus scanners. They will scan the file before you need to open it.

Answer 5

Viruses can be downloaded into your computer if you're not careful about who's email attachments you should open.

Answer 6

The email could contain some sort of virus, that takes your passwords and other information.

Answer 7

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Answer 8

you get viruses .

Answer 9

risk of spam and phishing you XX