Posts Tagged ‘fake’
Today I received an email from my ISP saying it had quarantined an email from someone at UPS. I found this strange as I was not expecting anything from UPS and that my ISP thought it was a virus.
As I always check these things out I phoned UPS and even before I got to multiple choice menu it had a message saying they have had a number of calls about this email. The email says that a delivery was attempted but no one answered and asks the user to open an attachment to arrange another delivery. Well you might have guessed it is a virus and opening this attachment infects your computer.
If you get any unexpected emails from a large company especially Ebay and Paypal go to their websites directly and not though a link on the email and check it out either by logging in or in my case phoning the company. I know Ebay and Paypal have an email address you can forward your email and they will tell you if it came from them or not.
As you know thieves try to get you to divulge your bank or credit cards, for internet users this is usually through email or fake websites but now they have another tactic. They are calling your home saying that your computer has errors or viruses. From a Microsoft website
We do not send unsolicited email or make unsolicited phone calls to request personal or financial information or fix your computer.
If you receive an unsolicited email message or phone call that purports to be from Microsoft and requests that you send personal information or click links, delete the email or hang up the phone.
There are other and you should see this Microsoft website for more details.
If you receive one of these call hang up, unless you give someone access or install monitoring software then they cannot tell if you have errors on your computer. If you have a virus that sends out spam email on your computer, then your internet provider will send you an email advising this.
If you are unsure about your computer then get it checked out by an experienced technician or engineer.
I have tweeted about this before but now Google has started to warn about it. Scareware is where a malicious piece of software disguises itself as a normal program but then demands money from you otherwise your something will happen.
I have always seen the fake anti virus ones that pop up and can not be closed down, they say your computer is infected and unless you pay a set fee to buy this program then they will not remove anything. The truth is that program is the malicious code and often adds other malicious programs which, even if you did pay, it would not remove them. The name of this program changes every so often, one was called anti virus 2009.
Anyway back to Google, they scanned 240 million web pages over 13 months, January 2009 to February 2010, and found that fake anti virus programs accounted for 15% of all malicious software. Over 11,000 web domains were involved in the distribution of the fake anti virus software. This attack is mainly aimed at Windows machines and is usually delivered through ADVERTS. The reason I highlighted adverts is I often get asked if it was because someone in the household had been on ‘adult’ sites, while some will be on adult sites most are now using normal looking website so they can get a greater infection.
