Virus attacks on protest groups: How do you protect yourself?

The online ripples of the Tibetan uprising are beginning to sound like something out of a cyberpunk novel. Last week, I talked about the use of camera phones to report police brutality against the protestors. Now a series of custom viruses have been emailed to Students for a Free Tibet.

The viruses appeared to be normal programs, word documents and powerpoint presentations. It is unclear what malicious code they then contained, but it's thought they took private information from the target's computers and sent this to the viruses' author.

Allan (Non-Profit Tech Blog) interviewed the protest group and their security advisor. It is quite a long post, so here are some takeaway findings:

1. Use Open Office instead of Microsoft Office (you won't be vunerable to macro viruses).
2. Use Gmail instead of a desktop email client (protection against known viruses, minimises spam, and allows secure previewing of documents).
3. Update your anti-virus software daily (you can probably automate this).
4. Minimise use of attachments: Use tools like Google Documents when more than one person needs to be working on a document or spreadsheet, and MediaFire when you need to share other types of file.