Authors, reviewers, and editors deal with submission files from people they don’t know on a daily basis, and there are some basic precautions that you will want to take to mitigate the possibility of being compromised via one of these files. These steps don’t differ from how you would deal with email or other daily life on the internet, but are worth outlining in general form here.
- Make sure you have antivirus software installed, and that it is up to date
- Make sure your operating system and all software (especially Word and Excel) are kept up to date, ideally by turning on any auto-update features available to you
- Make sure you have a backup solution available for your work computers
- Practice good password management: don’t use the same username/password in OJS, OMP, or OCS as you would for any other online account, and don’t use an easy to guess password
- Treat everything that you get online with the knowledge that you received it from someone you don’t know, and act likewise. If a submission appears to be suspicious for any reason (strange email address, suspiciously generic title or abstract, etc.), treat the included files with an additional level of diligence.
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