Current File : //usr/share/help/C/gnome-help/net-email-virus.page
<page xmlns="http://projectmallard.org/1.0/"
xmlns:its="http://www.w3.org/2005/11/its"
type="topic" style="question"
id="net-email-virus">
<info>
<link type="guide" xref="net-email"/>
<link type="guide" xref="net-security"/>
<link type="seealso" xref="net-antivirus"/>
<revision pkgversion="3.4.0" date="2012-02-20" status="final"/>
<revision pkgversion="3.18" date="2015-09-28" status="final"/>
<credit type="author">
<name>Phil Bull</name>
<email>philbull@gmail.com</email>
</credit>
<include href="legal.xml" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude"/>
<desc>Viruses are unlikely to infect your computer, but could infect the
computers of people you email.</desc>
</info>
<title>Do I need to scan my emails for viruses?</title>
<p>Viruses are programs that cause problems if they manage to find their way
onto your computer. A common way of them getting onto your computer is
through email messages.</p>
<p>Viruses that can affect computers running Linux are quite rare, so you are
<link xref="net-antivirus">unlikely to get a virus through email or
otherwise</link>. If you receive an email with a virus hidden in it, it will
probably have no effect on your computer. As such, you probably don’t need to
scan your email for viruses.</p>
<p>You may, however, wish to scan your email for viruses in case you happen
to forward a virus from one person to another. For example, if one of your
friends has a Windows computer with a virus and sends you a virus-infected
email, and you then forward that email to another friend with a Windows
computer, then the second friend might get the virus too. You could install
an anti-virus application to scan your emails to prevent this, but it’s
unlikely to happen and most people using Windows and Mac OS have anti-virus
software of their own anyway.</p>
</page>
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