Viruses
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Viruses and antivirus software
Preventing viruses in Microsoft Outlook
Preventing viruses in other e-mail clients
Overview
E-mail is a primary means for virus transmission, so it is important to take steps to reduce the potential for infection. In order to avoid infection via e-mail:
- Do not open e-mail attachments or other files from unknown people.
- Be suspicious even of attachments you receive from people you know, and scan them with updated antivirus software before opening them.
- Keep your computer's antivirus software up to date and active.
Attachments are the most common agents of viral transmission via e-mail. Often a subject line will encourage you to open or execute an attached file, sometimes even under the pretext that it is a security patch. While executing an attachment is the most common way to become infected, it is not impossible, with certain feature-rich e-mail clients (e.g., Outlook) and certain security settings, to launch a virus simply by opening or previewing an infected e-mail message. Conversely, text-based clients (e.g., Pine) are much less susceptible to infection, though they can still receive and transmit viruses and viral attachments.
Just as e-mail is a primary means for virus transmission, it is also a primary means of propagating virus hoaxes. It's generally best not to pass on virus warnings, unless you have confirmed their content with an authority on the subject. See the resources below for more information:
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Viruses and antivirus software
The Knowledge Base Viruses menu 
Obtaining Norton/Symantec AntiVirus at IU
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Preventing viruses in Microsoft Outlook
Protecting Outlook from viral e-mail attachments
The Outlook E-mail Security Update
"Unsafe attachment" warnings in Outlook
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Preventing viruses in other e-mail clients
Outlook Express 5.0 (with Norton AntiVirus 2000)
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E-mail virus hoaxes
Determining if a computer virus alert is a hoax
Examples of popular virus hoaxes