Have you been having trouble with your email lately? You are not alone. Spam and virus mail volume has reached an all time high this summer. July has seen the largest virus attack in over two years with the attack continuing to escalate into August.

These attacks are perpetrated through bot-nets. The concept is simple: A user opens an email containing an attachment, (lately in the form of a pdf or zip, but any attachment can work.) The attachment executes the virus code, and the users computer becomes part of the bot-net. These bot-net infected computers can lay dormant for days or even months before being called into action by the spammer controlling the bot-net. Once called into action, the user’s pc becomes a spam and virus sending zombie. Infected machines can send thousands of emails per day using legitimate credentials. This traffic causes mail servers across the Internet to become bogged down slogging through all this junk. You could be infected right now and not even know it.

What can you do to protect yourself? » Read more: Having problems with Email?