Week 9 and Scenario 11

Background Scenario 11

Mrs. Smith considers herself to be a pretty savvy computer user.  She has been working with computers for five years and uses them regularly in class.  Mrs. Smith get an email from someone she does not know but the opens the email anyway.  When she opens it, the message has some advertisement for a free gift, so she deletes the email.  Several days later she is working on her computer and notices that her internet browser is working very slowly.  She decides to check the computer with an antivirus program and discovers that she has a virus on her computer.  She determines that the virus came from the email she received several days previously.  How do we protect ourselves from online dangers?

Mrs. Smith is curious.  What is in this email?  Curiosity with unknown emails can lead to big problems on the computer with a virus.  A similar situation occurred on my computer not too many years ago when a email came during Christmas that looked like a Christmas card and I recognized the name of the sender.  However once opened and clicked on the link, it was phising scam which then took all my contacts and sent them the same nice looking Christmas card.  I knew as soon as I had opened it that something was wrong!  Because of all the activity on my account,  Hotmail shut down my account and I needed to get back online quickly to warn my contacts.   Due to my quick action  my contacts heeded my advice and did not open the email with the noxious attachment.  Sending out this quick email  demonstrated digital citizenship and responsibility.  Although I had made an error and suffered the inconvenience, my contacts/friends were spared.

Based on my experience and information contained in the textbook, course reading and online research, Mrs. Smith should not open any email where she do not recognize the name.  I did recognize the name on my email  however the actual address did not look legitimate upon closer examination.  Clicking on a link in an email can also lead to big problems (as I found out).  Second a firewall and anti-virus programs are an absolute must for protection, however they can only do so much and need to be upgraded.  People should always be cautious and use critical thinking skills to help identify credible links.  Students can learn these tools or a more difficult way is to learn through experience as I did.  Experience though is a good teacher as now I critically examine all emails in my inbox.

Christine

United States.  Department of Homeland Security.  Security Tip Using Caution with Email Attachments (2013) retrieved from https://www.us-cert.gov/ncas/tips/ST04-010