This may come as no surprise to you, but don’t think that spam is going away anytime soon. In fact, according to a recent Microsoft study, more more than 97 percent of all sent e-mail is spam. Ninety-seven percent! Granted, most of that stuff will never hit your inbox, thanks to improved filtering, but still! All that wasted bandwidth.
Most spam, again, as you probably know, is drug-related. “Pills, pills, pills! Pills as far as the eye can see! Just give us your bank account info, and you’ll being floating in no time!” No thanks.
And you know what happens when you open one of those types of e-mails, right? Bam! Your computer is now infected. Have a lolly.
Malfeasants tend to use Microsoft Office and Adobe PDF files to spread their computer-infecting nonsense. But here’s a word of advice: apparently most of the infections come from exploiting software bugs that have been patched within the past two years. That is, if you’re using an old, old version of Outlook because, hey, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. Well, it is broke; please fix it. Think of it like a car’s seat belt: you may not want to wear it, but your not wearing it adversely affects everyone around you, too. So stop being Mr. Selfish and keep your software upgraded. Doing so will win you five Internets.