Joke e-mails ... are they a threat?

Muppet81

This may be a stupid question BUT my friends think I am being miserable in that I will not open any of the jokey e-mails they forward. The ones that get circulated round to thousands.

I have always thought these were likley to carry a risk for my PC and have always deleted them without opening. I clearly have no idea where they originated.

Am I being paranoid? I would love to open these sometimes and have a giggle at some of the stuff in them but don't want to compromise my security on my PC.

davester

well if they are anything like the ones I get from friends and i delete without opening then yes you are right to be paranoid they are usally fowarded about 500 times till they get to you, who knows what has been added or attached by the time it left the first person and arrived on your virtual doorstep

kwikbreaks

> Am I being paranoid?

If you run a halfway competent AV then the answer to that is yes.

If you don't run AV then you should consider doing so.

Muppet81

I have McAfee.
Are you saying that with this in place and updated weekly, I should be safe in opening these massivly circulated e-mails?

sporedude

Aslong as you run a good AV then youl be fine.

sporedude

Muppet81 wrote: »

I have McAfee.
Are you saying that with this in place and updated weekly, I should be safe in opening these massivly circulated e-mails?

Most email providers come with a built in AV, Yeah aslong as McAfee has latest updates should be okay. Just dont open anything stating "The King of Nigeria has just died leaving you millions in his will, plz send bank details to get ur moneyz thnx" Anything like that ignore :money:

Blackpool_Saver

Get a full security set up on your PC, update it regularly and you can go anywhere you like

I get so many I can usually tell if they will be worth opening for the fun content !

foxy-roxy

I always get sent 'joke' emails from certain people and always opened them without a second thought, that was until i forward one to my private email address and opened it on my laptop at home to show OH and it gave me a virus:mad:
(but that was before i downloaded AV) still, put me off opening them though.

Muppet81

Thanks all of you. I feel happier for having checked this out with you.

kwikbreaks

There is a modicum of risk doing anything but reading jokes forwarded to you from known friends on a PC protected by AV software figures pretty low on the list. I suppose you could be bored to death by some or fall off your seat with others.

As an aside most AV packages that I'm familiar with update more frequently than weekly.

esuhl

If you set your email client to view emails as plain text or ASCII and don't open unsolicited attachments you should be fine.

If you have a vaguely decent antivirus and maybe some anti-malware software (such as Spybot S&D or Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware), you *should* be protected even if you do try to open a malicious file.