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Almost every day, I receive some type of chain letter in my e-mail
Inbox. They all usually contain different information and while some
of them are ridiculous, there are a few that seem really important.
Is there any good that can come from me forwarding those emails to
my friends? Are the chain letters really true? If you could clear
that up for me, I'd really appreciate it. Thank you!
A: There are literally
tons of chain letter type emails floating around the Web these days
and it's been going on for years. And while those kinds of emails
can be rather convincing, they are all just a big hoax. If you're
not quite sure what a chain letter type email is here's
an example. One that quickly came to mind is about a young child who
is terminally ill and needs an operation. The email starts off by
telling you about the child and their family. It gives you a poem
to read that was supposedly written for the child and it then asks
you to forward the email to everyone you know. It goes on to tell
you that for every forward, a certain amount of money will be given
to the family to help with the cost of the operation. The email usually
says that some big company, like AOL, will be donating the money. |
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INTERNET SECURITY NEWS
Beware of 'clickjacking'
The latest Internet threat
cloaks Web links so a wayward click can download malware to your PC
without your knowledge. What's worse, all browsers and other Web software
are susceptible to clickjacking,
Clickjacking
allows an attacker to use one or more of several new attack scenarios
to literally steal your mouse clicks. When you think you're clicking
on a simple button — for example, to see the next page of an article
— you may actually be giving the bad guys permission to do something
entirely different, such as log on to your online checking account.
By taking advantage of any of a growing number of recently discovered
vulnerabilities in Microsoft's Internet Explorer, Mozilla's Firefox,
Apple's Safari, and all other Web browsers, criminals can hijack your
system by intercepting clicks of what appear to be legitimate links.
The problem doesn't stop there, however. At least some of the flaws
that make clickjacking possible also show up in such popular Web tools
as Adobe's Flash player and Microsoft's Silverlight streaming-media
plug-in. In clickjacking, surreptitious buttons are "floated" behind
the actual buttons that you see on a Web site. When you click the
button, you're not triggering the function that you expected. Instead,
the click is routed to the bad guy's substitute link.
Besides browsers, the bad guys can also exploit Web programs such
as Adobe's Flash player. For instance, one proof-of-concept demonstration
shows that a hacker can use the Flash player to take over a PC's webcam
and microphone. Imagine the implications of stalkers eavesdropping
on your laptop's built-in camera and mic.
Browser and plug-in vendors have joined watchdog organizations in
describing what you can do to stay safe.
AVG LinkScaner blocks dangerous web sites and checks link results
from the popular search engines Google, Yahoo, MSN and Live for active
threats. LinkScaner works with Internet Explorer and Firefox, and
consists of two features. AVG Active Surf-Shield which delivers safe
surf protection, and AVG Search-Shield which delivers safe search
protection.
AVG Active Surf-Shield — Safe Surf prevents you from accidently becoming infected by drive-by downloads and other exploits, ensuring the web pages you visit are safe at the only time that really matters — when you click on the link.
Trojan Spammed as Microsoft
Security Update
There's a new Trojan being
spammed in email disguised as a Microsoft security update. The email
has the subject line "Security Update for OS Microsoft Windows" and
carries a malicious attachment touted as an "experimental private
version of an update for all Microsoft Windows OS users". Instead
of a security patch, those who open the attachment will infect their
system with a variant of Haxdoor, a backdoor Trojan which uses rootkit
technology to hide its presence. In the past, Haxdoor has also beendistributed as a greeting card.
Disguising
malware as a security update isn't a new trick - the Dumaru worm used
the same technique back in August 2003 as did the Gibe worm in March
2002. It's important to remember that Microsoft does not deliver security
updates via email attachment - any email attachment claiming to be
a Microsoft security update should be considered malicious and the
email should be promptly deleted.
Graham Cluley of Sophos has published the text of the most recent
security update scam on his blog.
MICROSOFT LIVE HOTMAIL AND HOTMAIL PLUS
With a recently revamped interface, Windows Live Hotmail (formerly
Hotmail) is the best-looking of the mail services I reviewed. Not
only can you choose a custom color for the interface, you're also
able to change the location of your reading pane by placing it on
the bottom or side of the screen.
Hotmail
supports the same selection conventions, drag-and-drop, and folder
storage features as Yahoo Mail, and the Microsoft mail service lets
you sort messages by date, author, subject, and other criteria.
However, unlike the other two services I looked at, Hotmail lets you
hide all mail except items with a specific subject or author or items
with an attachment.
On the subject of disposable
addresses, Hotmail states: "Add up to five of your e-mail addresses.
When you use an alternative address, recipients may see the following
information: 'From: realaddress@live.com on behalf of name@example.com.'"
Since Hotmail doesn't hide your real e-mail address, I don't think
this qualifies as a true disposable address.
Nevertheless, having multiple e-mail accounts is much easier to deal
with in Hotmail than in the other webmail apps I examined. For starters,
you can choose e-mail addresses ending in either hotmail.com or live.com.
Best of all, you can link multiple addresses and jump between them
quickly using a pop-up menu on the upper right. Hotmail's ability
to switch quickly among multiple accounts will make it the best choice
for some people. However, the service has some catching up to do if
it wants to match the breadth of features provided by competing webmail
services.
Like Yahoo Mail, Hotmail has a paid
version that gives you increased storage and attachment size as well
as fewer ads and no account expiration. The differences are summarized
at the Windows Live Hotmail Plus site.
Here is the easiest way to check which operating system you have. Go to Start, Run and type in "winver" (without the quotes). PressEnter on your keyboard. That will bring up a new window that has all the information about your computer's operating system. It will give you the version (98, 2000, XP, etc.), the build information and the Service Pack version, if one is installed. It will look something like this: