I have read over Cisco's 2009 Midyear Security Report several times now and am pleased to report that I was not disappointed by what I read.  Cisco put together a great document that I strongly encourage all of you to read - this document is full of easy-to-read technical information that every computer user should know about.  Since I know that many of you are busy, I am going to write some very quick articles about some of the recommendations contained within the report.

For the first article in the series, I would like to start off with a very important concept that I know you have heard of before.  Most of us know to be very careful about opening executable (.exe) files - that is a very common piece of advice designed to protect people.  The idea is that you really do not know what you are opening, so you should be extremely careful to avoid getting infected with a particularly bad virus.

Now, I know that you are too smart to open strange executables, but how do you feel about opening up Word/Excel files?  Or what about Adobe's famous .pdf files?  Do you ever give those a second thought?

Cisco thinks you should give those a second thought.  Productivity applications (like Microsoft's Word and Excel, or Adobe's Reader) are one of the major vulnerabilities that Cisco has identified in the midyear report.  They suggest that you should be very careful about opening files that run in those common programs.  So, be very vigilant.  Cisco suggests that you apply the same skepticism to common productivity files as you apply to executables.

I think that is some great advice.