i-way Consulting

e-business Planning, Consulting, Project Management, Training

We last talked about Viruses in the July 2002 Newsletter, and Spam in the June 2003 Newsletter. It's time for a brief update on both, to help you reduce disruption to your business in 2004.

Like many of you, I have received the latest e-mail virus this week. The message subject is "Hi" and the message starts "Test =)". There is an attached .exe file - delete this file immediately!

This was an early reminder to keep my anti-virus software (VET) current! I download the latest update file at least once a week. You should too.

Did you receive a surge of spam e-mails over the Christmas period?

The Government's new Anti-Spam legislation becomes effective in April - look at the Government's Spam page for details. The legislation may affect your business e-mail usage, so we'll look at this in a future Newsletter.

Over the break, a friend sought my advice about his spam problem: about 100 e-mails a day. He was annoyed! He'd tried all the usual solutions, but spam just kept coming. So we purchased ($US 40, also 14 day free trial) Choicemail software, from Digiportal. Result: no spam, happy friend.

Choicemail (and others) uses a 'challenge response' approach: if the sender's address is not in your address book, then the e-mail is blocked, and the sender is asked for verification. Genuine senders will reply and be let through.

You may want to look at this solution to your spam problem. Although it's not for everyone - eg. if your business receives many legitimate unsolicited enquiries about products, this approach will only annoy potential customers.

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