The month of malicious spam

I found this interesting at the Sophos AntiVirus website.
The month of malicious spam: Fraudsters step up their attempts to infect PC users,
Sophos announces top ten web and email borne threats for August 2007.

I can’t tell the complete story here so here’s the link to that story:
http://www.sophos.com/pressoffice/news/articles/2007/09/toptenaug07.html


Nice info, flygirl … thanks for posting it. :slight_smile:


Personally I don’t think anything has changed for some time, much of the spam, malware, etc. is organised crime trying to get either your details, user names, passwords, etc. or trying to add you system to their bot nets.

The things that have changed might be the methods, but for the most part it is social engineering trying to get you to click on a link to see ‘Gosh I’ve just seen a video of you on youtube, etc.’ and you would be surprised who many would click the link. There are even fools that will click a link that says, ‘what ever you do don’t click this link,’ they tested it and people will click it.

Steer clear of attachments and links in unsolicited emails even if you think it comes from a friend (easily faked) and you will reduce exposure dramatically.

Steer clear of attachments and links in unsolicited emails even if you think it comes from a friend (easily faked) and you will reduce exposure dramatically
how true-and thanks also flygirl for the information :)

http://i4.tinypic.com/6f991fq.jpg

That’s about on a par with folks who follow emailed links to “update” or “verify” personal info for banks they don’t even do business with. Good grief, if Revenue Canada really thought I dealt with so many banks (and didn’t know about phishing), I’d probably be close-audited by them till hell freezes over. :wink:


Yep … and I have never had a PayPal account yet every few months I get an email to update my account. I am not a phish so it does no good for someone to go phishing for me. ::slight_smile: :wink:

Yes I get no end of requests to update my bank account, for multiple banks in the USA, I really can’t understand how people get taken by this c*ap, banks don’t conduct business this way.

I’ve received one today…

Dear Bank of America client,

You have received this email because you or someone had used your account from different locations.For security purpose, we are required to open an investigation into this matter.

In order to safeguard your account, we require that you confirm your banking details.

The help speeed up to this process, please access the following link so we ca complete the verification of your Bank of America Online Banking Account registration information.

http://201.78.78.249/www.   bankofamerica   .com   /sslencrypt218bit/online_banking/

If we do no receive the appropriate account verification within 48 hours, then we will assume this Bank of America account is fraudulent and will be suspended.

The purpose of this verification is to ensure that your bank account has not been fraudulently used and to combat the fraud from our community. We appreciate your support and understanding and thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.

I see lots of these in mailwasher but that is as far as they get, many are already flagged as blacklisted origin, the rest I just make for learning and flag to delete from the server. So none of them ever get downloaded to my system.

I use mailwasher as well, and have mine set like yours, David. The only way to go. :slight_smile:

Thanks flygirl for the information. Very useful. Not surprised though. :slight_smile: