How Do I? Frequently Asked Questions about Viruses, Sypware, and Fraudulent E-mails
Why is an e-mail trying to scare me into giving out my username and password?
What are all these pop-up ads that keep coming up?
Why is my home page going to some site I've never heard of? How do I fix it?
How do I deal with e-mails that I think might be hoaxes?
Why is an e-mail trying to scare me into giving out my username and password?
Stop, look and think before responding to e-mails asking for account information. Recently, several members of the university community have received fraudulent e-mails asking for personal information. If you receive what appears to be a suspicious e-mail, please take the following steps:
- Stop before replying to suspicious e-mails. They are probably phishing attempts.
- Look carefully at the e-mail. What is the reply-to address? Is it from a non-St. Edward's address?
- Think about the purpose of this e-mail. Does it ask you to send a password via e-mail? St. Edward's will never ask for your password.
Don't respond in any way to these e-mails. If you are not sure if something is a phishing attempt, forward it to the help desk and they will check it out.
How do I protect my computer?
See the information at Protecting Your Computer.
What is a Trojan Horse?
Trojan Horses are impostors--files that claim to be something desirable but, in fact, are malicious. A very important distinction between Trojan horse programs and true viruses is that they do not replicate themselves. Trojans contain malicious code that when triggered cause loss, or even theft, of data. For a Trojan horse to spread, you must, invite these programs onto your computers--for example, by opening an email attachment or downloading and running a file from the Internet.
What are all these pop-up ads that keep coming up?
These are adware, which displays unwanted advertising banners, pop-ups, pop-unders, etc., in your web browser.
Why is my home page in Internet Explorer going to some site I've never heard of? How do I fix it?
Your web browser has been "hijacked". This is a form of adware that forces your browser settings to redirect your home page to a site from which the creator derives revenue. You can try changing the Home Page in IE by going to the Tools menu and choosing Internet Options. Change the home page back to your original choice. Click on Ok to save the changes. If this doesn't work, you can use Malwarebytes Anti-Malware and SUPERAntiSypware to repair your browser.
How do I deal with e-mails that I think might be hoaxes?
Hoaxes usually arrive in the form of an email. Please disregard the hoax emails - they contain bogus warnings usually intent only on frightening or misleading users. The best course of action is to merely delete these hoax emails. Although it is possible to be emailed an infected executable file or document containing a macro virus, by simply reading your email, you will not get a computer virus. You would have to open the file attachment to actually get a virus. Therefore, precautions should be taken when dealing with such attachments. See St. Edward's email attachment policy for information on attachments that are automatically discarded because of their potential to carry viruses and worms.
If you receive notice of a virus via email, please forward it to the Help Desk at helpline@stedwards.edu so that it can be checked out.