Today the Washington Post covered a new scam which is sweeping through the net. The scam uses a standard method of embedding a trojan horse application to an email an enticing users to click it. Attacks like these have been used since the early days of email and it’s clear that trojan horse models are not getting old. Once you download a trojan horse, attackers can access your computer and control it remotely.

It’s pretty clear how not to get scammed by these attacks. If somehow, this email manages to get through your spam filters you can protect yourself by first: not opening the email. Most emails sent by Facebook do not have an attachment. As such, you should not open any attachments which appear to be from Facebook. Seriously, why would Facebook send you a picture of your friend?

Don’t open zip files that are sent to you by anybody but your friends! Even if they are sent by your friends make sure they tell you that they are sending a zip file. Why on earth would Facebook send you zip files? They wouldn’t! If you have any questions about the legitimacy of an email, it probably isn’t legitimate. Delete the email if you don’t know.

These are simple steps to avoid downloading a trojan virus on to your computer. There are other ways to prevent trojans but my guess is that readers of this blog already know how to do so.