Posts Tagged ‘Spam’

Did You Get Hit with Yesterday’s Email Virus?

Friday, September 10th, 2010

Yesterday, many companies found their computers coming to a halt as a result of a computer virus which was circulating the Internet.  The virus was called “here you have”, because of the subject line, is a Trojan-Horse which arrives in an email.  As with many viruses of this sort, the major problems come as a result of a user clicking on the link, which then infects the computer.

One of the many benefits to having a system like our hosted email system in place, is that the internal network does not take a traffic hit.  This is because the email server resides outside the local network.  Our spam filtering and the initial phase of our virus scanning also takes place outside the network.

While there is no sure way to be safe on the Internet, aside from abstaining, our clients did not face the same issues as that of CBS, Disney, AIG, NASA, and many others.

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Legitimate Marketing or Email Blunder?

Tuesday, August 24th, 2010

Earlier today I received an email from a local company.  The email had a Word document attached, labeled flyer.  It was from a local business trying to generate additional sales.  While creating sales is certainly very legitimate, the approach the sender took was not.

As I never gave my permission for this company to send me an email, this could be considered spam.  Second, instead of using an email system such as Constant Contact, they simply entered everyone’s names from their address book.  And they used the To: field, further exposing everyone’s email addresses.

It is perplexing that in this day and age, people still don’t know how to properly use email for legitimate, responsible marketing purposes.

Perhaps I shouldn’t be so astonished, as just the other day I saw several Facebook posts using a combination of text language, and a bad case of grammar, making the post unpleasant to read.

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Insidious Spam Designed to Look Real

Friday, July 9th, 2010

Earlier today a client from Clifton Park called in concerning an email message they did not send.  When we connected with their desktop we discovered a new spam message disguised to look legitimate.

The email comes from Mail Delivery and shows Subsystem Delivery Status Notification (Failure)

The email contains an attachment which holds the payload.  The attachment is called Forwarded Message.html

The body of the email message is as follows, (we substituted the email address):

Note: Forwarded message is attached.

This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification

THIS IS A WARNING MESSAGE ONLY.

Delivery to the following recipient has been delayed:

name@domain.com

Message will be retried for 2 more day(s)

If you get a message like this, delete it.

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I Just Won a BMW

Tuesday, June 8th, 2010

Earlier today I was informed that I won a new BMW in an online promotion.  Well that is  what is in the email, so it must be true.  At least that is what Chris Shedd wrote me.

It seems the only thing I needed to do was provide my full name, address, date of birth, telephone number and country.  Then contact Mr. Kelvin Williams of the BMW Automobile Company.

Oh, according to Mark White,I have also won 750,000 GBP (pounds).  I guess this is my luck day.  As long as I don’t click the  link or reply back.

Obviously the spammers and identity thefts are still out there.



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Alert – Fake Internal Revenue Service Email Circulating

Tuesday, March 30th, 2010

The latest scam to hit is one which is especially devious as it instills fear in most Americans.

The email states in the subject line something to the effect of “Under Reported Income Notice”.

Once opened, it starts its insidious work by downloading software to seal sensitive data such as bank information.

In the event the link in the email was clicked, unplug the computer from the Internet and contact a professional to help resolve the issue.