By Doctor Security
To continue with my 2010 social networking theme, I want to share a couple of recent attempts to scam me or infect my PC.
The first attempt came in the form of an email from a young friend with an AOL account. The subject line was innocuous enough: “Hi.” The email slipped through my spam filter because it was a message from someone in my address book and the subject line didn’t raise any red flags.
Upon opening the email, there was no message except for a link that made me suspicious immediately. I did not feel compelled to click on it because nothing about this address (URL) looked inviting:
http://sites.google.com/site/bighkoi/jjjie8k.
However, I noticed that there were a number of other recipients (presuming my friend’s email account had been hacked, everyone in her address book likely received this email). Now, if any of her friends absent-mindedly clicked on the link, they could have instantly opened the door to all sorts of malware attacks, including the kind that take over the PC and use it as a launching pad for spamming and spreading viruses.
If you don’t want your computer to become a “Zombie” added to a cybercriminal’s network, you need to be always on guard and invest in a security software.
Here’s another sneaky way online criminals tried to get me to click on a link: The creeps joined a Yahoogroup I was a member of and then sent everyone in the group this message:
haha! I i found a very crazy video today, so I wanna share it with you. You can watch online here: http://crazy8videos.zoomshare.com/files/ video.htm.
This message was clearly inappropriate for my group, so it was easy to assume it was the work of someone with malicious intent. I deleted the message and reported this group member to Yahoo.
That said, please stay alert any time you open up your email!