Every 10 years, as laid down by the Founding Fathers in our Constitution, there is a census. While the Census Bureau gathers population information almost constantly, there is still an official Census every decade. And this year, you should be receiving a form in the mail. And, of course, Census Bureau workers will be out visiting some homes. Which means that entrepreneurial scammers will be out visiting homes as well. In order to avoid being scammed by fake Census workers, keep the following in mind:

Do not give out personal financial information. The Census does not ask information about your Social …read more

I received an email the other day that was a very good spoof and knock-off email that’s entire purpose was for phishing and dropping off a trojan horse application in its payload. The question is whether or not you’re paying attention close enough to have seen it.

Outlook 2007 does a good job of letting you know when you receive emails that look suspicious. Here’s a couple of things I immediately look for in a seemingly weird or unexpected email.
1.) Is there an attachment? Anytime I receive an email with an attachment I’m always leery of the file. Even if it’s …read more

I received an email today that was a phishing scam using the popular online payment website, PayPal. My Outlook client caught it as Junk Mail, but I thought it would be a good opportunity to show people how a legitimate “looking” email can really lead you to places you don’t want to go.

As you can see from the image above which is a screen capture from my email Inbox, everything looks normal and appropriate and legitimate right? However, if you hover your mouse over the links you’ll see that the link is actually going to direct you to a bogus …read more

Gmail is a pretty good mail service provided by Google which strives towards accurately catching spam, and is very successful in catching the phish. One thing that empowers the people behind Gmail is the volumes that Google sees.
The Google Enterprise Mail is apparently a much-in-demand service too and it has a Google Enterprise “spam squad” who welcome spam so as to analyze and counter them. Nearly a month after the new year started, they have posted a retrospective post “2008: The Year in Spam” which you may go through if you have time. Otherwise this summary will suffice.
Closing the McColo Network …read more

The last year can also be called “the year of Twitter”. The micro-blogging social media tool where each user answers the question, “What are you doing?” has gone viral so much so that there have been a billion tweets in 2.5 years since its launch. Latest news is breaking through Twitter already and the Internet dictionary put on a few pounds thanks to Twitter. At a time when the Twitterverse is speculating about whether Twitter would monetize or not, it is natural for miscreants to take advantage of Twitter to make some money themselves.
Here are three problems all twitter users are …read more

While spammers are getting more innovative by the day, most victims still fall prey to the primitive types. I suggest three thumb rules to defend yourself against the seven common types of spam mail that I’ve recently mentioned. They are all common sense, but if common sense were abundant among all of us all the time, the world would’ve been a tiringly boring place.
First thumb rule is to keep your mouse away or tie your fingers from accidentally clicking on the links within the message or downloading the attachment.
Second thumb rule for any kind of spam (apart from cheesy forwards, I …read more

My first experience with spam that I can distinctly remember is a letter to my dad from Australia about a large lottery he had apparently won. I was then barely ten years old, and along with my mom credited my dad with the ingenuity to have carefully chosen an Australian lottery to invest a penny in it as a quick way to get rich, without telling any of us about it. My bright and cynical older brother constantly doused our hopes until my dad returned from work and drowned them down the toilet.
Man has known spam for as long as …read more