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If I created another user on my home PC and used it only to open suspicious emails and if one of those emails inserted a virus, would that virus only be in that user’s “sandbox” or would it affect the whole PC?
There are times when I might want see more than the header of a suspicious email to see if I need to take further action and would need to actually open it, thus risking a virus. Thanks
I have never felt a desperate need to know what is in any e-mail, but surely the answer is in your question. If you feel you absolutely need to know what is in the e-mail, make a full backup, shut down any other computers, phones, tablet etc. and use a sandbox.
Rhino
A separate user is not a sandbox. Your whole PC will be infected.
Luckily, the days of drive by email viruses are pretty much behind us and the only way you can get a virus from email is clicking yes to run an attached program.
Do not open attachments from suspect emails. Save the attachment and scan it / upload to VirusTotal.
Never click yes / OK to allow programs to run without knowing where the program came from and that you actually requested it.
Run up to date AV.
Backup regularly.
cheers, Paul
Using webmail in a Windows Sandbox (Windows 10 Pro/Enterprise only) is perhaps the only safe way to evaluate emails and attachments:
You don’t mention whether you’re using an email client, but if so, try right-clicking on the unopened email. If you see the option to “forward as an attachment”, select that option.
If you’re accessing your email at the provider’s website, the option may be available there as well.
Instead of forwarding the email, view the email source and copy it to an email to yahoo.
This opens a text version of the email which will be safe – assuming you don’t have to open the email to be able to view the source.
cheers, Paul
I use save as text or html and use with a TEXT viewer (notepad). Is this a good technique?
Not if you have to open the email to save it.
I like the “move it to the junk folder” first idea.
cheers, Paul
Outlook has a button in the ribbon for Forward as Attachment (which includes the original internet header):
I guess that is the PC desktop app. I do not see a ribbon (like what I see on my EXCEL and WORD) I just log directly into http://www.outlook.com to see my email. While I see Forward after right click I don’t see forward as attachment.
To forward as attachment at Outlook.com, you can drag and drop the original email into the body of a new message:
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