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Internet Scams 101 Attacking You Through Your E mail
he Internet is filled with record the places you go online
scams, and eventually they and what links you click on,
wind up in your e-mail box. telling advertisers what type of
The ingenuity of these people is ads should be aimed at you. It's
astonishing. Their goal is true, they won't transmit a
usually to get you to click on an virus, but who wants an Internet
e-mail attachment, so they can bloodhound baying on their trail?
infect your computer with a Good anti-spyware will remove
virus, a tracking cookie, and/or tracking cookies.
a trojan horse.
• A TROJAN HORSE pretends to be
• COMPUTER VIRUSES strike fear something it is not, such as an
into all our hearts. When a e-mail from a friend or something
particularly vicious virus comes you've ordered. The text of the
out, announcements are made on e-mail may say, "Here is the
television and in newspapers. For information you wanted." Or,
a good discussion of computer "Keep this as a secret between
viruses, go to you and me." Or, "You've just won
http://computer.howstuffworks.com our grand prize!" Anything to
/virus.htm. make you click on that
attachment. Once you do, the
• A COOKIE can be perfectly trojan horse takes over your
aboveboard and even helpful. For computer. It can do any malicious
example, when you visit thing it wants, from erasing
Amazon.com, you get a cookie files to changing your desktop.
which enables their computer to It then propagates by sending
recognize you when you return and itself to other people in your
to remember the sort of thing address book.
you're interested in. TRACKING
COOKIES, on the other hand, A good friend just had his
Internet address list stolen, and a minute to click on "Reply" and
I've been getting messages ask the friend, "Did you really
supposedly from him ever since. send this?"
They all want me to click on an
attachment to the e-mail. I • Anti-scam rule 2: Never
e-mailed asking him if he'd sent double-click on an e-mail
that message. He had not. attachment that contains an
executable, such as an EXE, COM
Even if you're smart enough not or VBS suffix. Once you click on
to click on a trojan horse it, an executable can do any sort
attachment yourself, one of the of damage it wants. (Enough
friends on your address list may people now know this to make the
do so, your address will then be scammer say, "This attachment is
stolen, and off you go into the virus-free." If you believe that,
underworld. I've got a nice bridge I'd like
to sell you.)
Once scammers get your e-mail
address, they may use it to send • Anti-scam rule 3: Your
malicious e-mails to thousands of computer CANNOT be infected by an
people in your name. I usually e-mail attachment unless you
discover this when I get "I'm out click on the attachment. If you
of the office" automatic simply delete the suspicious
responder messages from people I message without clicking on a
never heard of. It's frustrating, link or the attachment, you're
but I know it isn't my fault. okay.
• Anti-scam rule 1: Never click REAL CHUTZPAH
on an attachment from a good
friend unless you are positive It's so awful it's funny, but
the friend sent it. It takes only after the scammers have used your
stolen address to scam thousands, myself, and I, and I never sent
they have one more scam up their that message." Of course, if my
sleeves. This is the message they e-mail address had been, say,
sent me: AOL, the message would have been
signed, "the AOL.com team." I
"Your e-mail account was used to might have thought the dear folks
send a huge amount of spam during at AOL were trying to help me,
this week. Obviously, your and I'd have clicked on that
computer was compromised and now attachment. Which was of course
contains a trojan proxy server. from the scammer, not AOL, and
Please follow the instruction in would have infected me.
the attached text file in order
to keep your computer safe. • Anti-scam rule 4: Having your
address stolen does NOT infect
Sincerely yours, you with a virus or trojan horse.
The foodandfiction.com team." If you don't open suspicious
attachments, you are all right --
My first thought was, "How nice. though you may want to warn your
These people are sympathetic to friends that they'll be getting
my problem and want to help me." attachments pretending to be from
And then I thought, "Wait a you, which attachments will
minute! This message is infect them if they open them.
supposedly from the
foodandfiction.com team. Food and Coming next: an article on
Fiction, hijackings and spyware.
http://foodandfiction.com, is me,
About the Author:
Find the best recipe, food gift, and healthy dieting sites on Janette Blackwell's Delightful Food Directory, http://delightfulfood.com/main.html -- or enjoy her country cooking at Food and Fiction, http://foodandfiction.com/Entrance.html
Read more articles by: Janette Blackwell
Article Source: www.iSnare.com
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