Scenario 11:
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| Photo copied from: http://www.greatlakescomputer.com/blog |
Mrs. Smith considers herself to be a pretty savvy computer
user. She has been working with computers for five years and uses them
regularly in class. Mrs. Smith gets an email from someone she does not know but
opens the email anyway. When she opens it, the message has some advertisement
for a free gift, so she deletes the email. Several days later she is working on
her computer and notices that her Internet browser is working very slowly. She
decides to check the computer with an antivirus program and discovers that she
has a virus on her computer. She determines that the virus came from the email
she received several days previously.
Mrs. Smith seems to be competent with digital literacy by knowing that
she most likely received the virus by opening an unknown
email. Mrs. Smith demonstrated digital literacy by noticing that her
internet browser was slow and the most likely cause was a virus. She also
demonstrated digital literacy by using an antivirus program to remove it and
determining that the email was the root of the problem. However, there
were still some actions that should be done differently. I came across
an article that says the 2 best defences
against e-mail viruses are: never opening an e-mail with attachment unless you
know the sender and ensure that you are using an antivirus or firewall to scan the e-mail before
opening it. As you can see, Mrs. Smith did not follow these rules. Mrs. Smith
should not have opened the e-mail from someone that she did not know. If she
had decided to open it, she should have scanned the e-mail using a
firewall or antivirus first, which she did not do as well. Overall, Mrs. Smith should
never open unknown e-mails with links or attachments as they most likely
contain e-mail viruses.
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| Photo copied from: http://cynergistek.com/understanding-reducing-security-threats-webinar/6201702-shield-antivirus-abstract-done-in-3d/ |
Also this article talks
about the different kinds of viruses that exist and how they can enter your computer.
This website talks about the Worm Virus that is very commonly spread through
emails. However the website does mention that in order for the virus to get
into your computer you need to click a link or open an attachment. In general
opening up these kinds of emails should not be a concern if you do not open
links or attachments. Mrs. Smith took very appropriate actions when she noticed
that her Internet browser was working slowly. Her use of the antivirus was
correct as it lead her to determine the source of the virus. This website describes
very well what an antivirus is and how it can help users detect viruses.
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| Photo copied from: https://connections.cu.edu/did-you-know/protect-your-computer/ |
Mrs. Smith could have opened the unknown email but avoided opening any links
or attachments from the unknown sender. Also she could have
altogether not opened the email but instead try to find out who the sender is.
There is also software like this one that
can detect email viruses.
Many people have done the same as Mrs. Smith. Have you?
What was the outcome?
Hi Fajar,
ReplyDeleteI actually have done this in the past as well. I believe it was around grade 8 that I opened a bad email from one of my friends. Not long after my own email began spending spam out to all of my contacts. It was pretty embarrassing to have to tell all of your contacts not to open the emails you had sent them! The only solution I had at the time was to save and delete all of my contacts' email addresses. Things definitely could have been much worse, but I have definitely learnt my lesson going forward!
Thanks for sharing,
Blake Gough
Hi Fajar,
ReplyDeleteOpening emails from unknown senders and opening up attachments may invite unwanted malicious software onto your computer. I have definitely experienced unknown emails with attachments, and luckily I knew not to open them as it could have potentially caused harm to my computer. This is something that all computer users need to be aware of as it ultimately promotes "the right to safety".
Thanks!
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteFajar GREAT analysis....
ReplyDeleteI like how you broke down what Mrs. Smith did before simply assuming she lacked digital literacy skills!
For starters as you said, Mrs. Smith DOES define herself as a "tech savvy" individual and this is evidently seen as although she DID open the unknown email, she DID NOT proceed by opening up the "free gift". Furthermore, when she noticed the slow internet she knew something was up, she used her instinct combined with her already existing digital literacy to check her antivirus software. The fact that she even HAD an antivirus software downloaded on her computer says a lot about Mrs. Smith knowledge on being safe online and avoiding viruses!
GREAT analysis Fajar!
Hey Fajar, excellent work as usual.
ReplyDeleteI like how you broke everything down and made it easier to understand. I'm not the most tech savy person, and have made the mistake of clicking on things that I probably shouldn't of, not necessarily those obvious emails, but pop-ups for example. Actually my computer is currently running a little bit slower than usual, maybe I should go run an anti-virus right now.
Excellent work Fajar.
Kevin