by Edward Raymond

Created on: September 03, 2008

I am often asked about spam, phishing attempts, and viruses. Because of this, I've composed the following explanation of the offending types of e-mail and ways to avoid falling victim.

The Culprits

Spammers and Phishers will harvest e-mail addresses from web sites and from the address books of spyware infected PC's. They will also send from address that are not there own. Throw away accounts such as gmail and yahoo are quite common while they will also use addresses from the same organization that they are spamming. In the latter case, joe@mailserver.com may become the sender of a spam e-mail to the public as a bold attempt to get past spam filters such as Postini.

Viruses will also use the address book of the user on an infected computer to send copies of itself and will select random addresses to masquerade as being the sender. In doing so, they protect the identity of their unknowing host and can remain active for a longer duration. Should they infect a laptop, they could put an entire organization at risk as soon as the laptop is taken to the work place and plugged into its network. This puts the virus inside the firewall and allows it to not only pass itself via e-mail but through open file shares accross the network as well.

How to protect yourself

* Use a disposable web based e-mail address for filling out online web forms. Get an account through Gmail.com or Yahoo.com. Whenever you visit a web site that requests you to give an e-mail address, give the web based address instead of your regular e-mail. This prevents
web sites from spamming your regular account with marketing spam that you may be only marginally interested in. It also has the benefit of keeping an attachment from automatically running on your system. You would also be well advised to insist that those sending you e-mail you want to see send their messages in plain text. You can do this by setting your account to only display messages in plain text and e-mailing the individuals in your contact list to alert them of your wish. This prevents active web content from being run within your browser just because you opened an e-mail.

* Examine Headers
Headers include the From:, To:, and CC: fields. It also includes the BCC: field which stands for blind carbon copy. Unfortunately, the recipient is not intended to be able to view addresses listed here. The To: field, depending on the e-mail reader, only shows the name of the supposed sender. You will need to show the full headers in order to find out if

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>