How malaware spreads on your computer?

Where do these email attachments come from, you may ask? As part of their objective to duplicate and distribute themselves, many viruses hijack your email program and use it to send infected files to everyone in your address book. In nearly all cases, these viruses are designed to work with the email software most people have on their systems, namely Microsoft Outlook and Windows Mail (formerly Outlook Express). If you want to significantly hobble your computer’s susceptibility to this type of attack, you’d be wise to use any other email software, such as Mozilla Thunderbird (http://www.mozilla.com) or stick with web-based email like Gmail (http://www.gmail.com) or Windows Live Mail (http:// mail.live.com).