What e-mail attachments are most likely malicious?

March 30, 2010 by Sam Narisi

Posted in: In this week's e-newsletter, Latest News & Views, Security

Users should avoid opening all unknown e-mail attachments. But some types of files are more dangerous than others.

The most common types of malicious files are also the file types most likely to be e-mailed — namely, .XLS, .DOC, .ZIP and .PDF files — according to a report from security firm Symantec.

But those aren’t the most dangerous file types. That would be the .RAR file, a proprietary compressed archive format.

According to Symantec’s report, .RAR files sent over e-mail are malicious 96.8% of the time.

Warn users: Watch out for all e-mail attachments, but pay special attention to .RAR files.

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Tags: .RAR, malicious e-mail attachments, Symantec

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