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Spam Most spam is only annoying and not harmful but occasionally it may contain a virus. This is why you should always have a security program such as Panda or Norton running in the background. It is also important to keep these programs updated. Another form of spam can be much more serious and that is the identity theft con. You may receive an email which looks like it comes from your bank, credit card, Paypal or even a store where you hold an account. It will have been sent to thousands of people hoping to hit someone with such an account. Let us say you have a Paypal account and recieve one of these scams. Everything in the email will look correct. All graphics and even the return email and printed links will look correct. It will ask you to update something on their site. When you click on the provided link which looks correct http://paypal.com/updatesomething you will actually go to another site which will probably look something like this http://22.123.45.67.com/paypalupdate/. Once again all the graphics will be correct and there will be boxes for your id and password. If you fill these in they will immediately have access to your account and you may not find out until charges begin appearing on the account. The way to foil all of these scams is to always access any secure site that you use in the same way - from your own link. Never go to your bank from a link in an email. This way you will never be diverted to an incorrect url. Want to know what your kids are saying on line? Online services. |