I wrote an email to a professor and got a file titled "noname" as an attachment. On opening it on Notepad I got an output. What does this output mean?

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.14 (GNU/Linux)

iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJYrWGcAAoJEG1pRy3M2PmIin8IAKVulTkC1AYrhf6WYiMVTfTI
9ORtSyJ7lMtsFisjWP4tFbyad3x7Qrxfk+fxUqig+M2vADvl8rauM1qYlnO2NYbz
jxJdAfM9u2eWunFhqY2bWLEx3+aC7T93ZYFyWquF2OO9xMWvDdeJ5S3uM5jRiIKK
Am9K5pP7TM1CHoGGIbVn/wI776UiGvbPo7oXzrcOdiuSQKRZ022EzHd7MKT6gAjq
W/KEz6EU/PVihd3HXXJRZz5fv05xRKF1WJG08Hdu5wf9AIuh5QbK166DYRaknP2m
LovM76hr+JRNlcE3RJvLu6g1tV8tYYXUWjs/et8wlPktUTnh8neHcdx1H7JN29g=
=7Kgk
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

What does this mean? Is it some sort of virus?

model_checker

Posted 2017-02-22T13:03:38.840

Reputation: 109

1PGP stands for Pretty good privacy. With this signature you can check if the e-mail you got is original. – IQV – 2017-02-22T13:10:36.090

Answers

It certainly isn't a virus. It is plain text and plain text cannot harm you.

However, it seems to be PGP digital signature generated by GNU Privacy Guard. You can use this digital signature to verify the authenticity of the email you received.

Of course, doing that needs you to study the user manual of the GNU Privacy Guard (or a compliant PGP-based software like GPG4Win).

user477799

Posted 2017-02-22T13:03:38.840

Reputation: