***PC SECURITY***

[The Scottish Ambassador]

THIS IS VERY SERIOUS, PLEASE SEND TO EVERYONE ON YOUR E-MAIL LIST!!


Anyone-using Internet mail such as Yahoo, Hotmail,

AOL and so on.


This information arrived this morning,

Direct from both Microsoft and Norton


Please send it to everybody you know who has

access to the Internet.


You may receive an apparently harmless e-mail titled 'Mail Server Report'


If you open either file, a message will appear on your screen saying:

'It is too late now, your life is no longer beautiful.'


Subsequently you will LOSE EVERYTHING IN YOUR PC,

And the person who sent it to you will gain access to your

name, e-mail and password.


This is a new virus which started to circulate on Saturday afternoon.

AOLhas already confirmed the severity, and the anti virus software's

are not capable of destroying it.


The virus has been created by a hacker who calls himself

'life owner'.


PLEASE SEND A COP Y OF THIS E-MAIL

TO ALL YOUR FRIENDS, And ask them to

PASS IT ON IMMEDIATELY!


THIS HAS BEEN CONFIRMED BY SNOPES.

[THier]

I must be reading something wrong.

http://snopes.com/computer/virus/mailserver.asp

[Alexander215]

I think it's generally a good idea not to open anything that looks suspicious.

[SlyHigh]

It extremely rare that a virus will infect your PC by just opening an email.  It's the opening of an attachment that does the damage.

[phuzzphree]

It used to be that hackers were interested in the notoriety and making it known that you were duped.  Now that organized crime is involved, they don't want you to know that you have downloaded and installed a trojan program to collect your personal information and provide a gateway into your computer to download other programs.  If you're familiar w/ the 'Borg Collective' you will understand what these modern day hackers are doing.  Infecting as many machines as they can and putting them to use for spying on you and attacking other computer systems.  Basically your computer becomes a 'zombie'. They sell the services of these 'bot nets' to send spam, create denial of service attacks and other insidious things.

[Alexander215]

It extremely rare that a virus will infect your PC by just opening an email.  It's the opening of an attachment that does the damage.

That's what I was alluding to, but you gotta be wary of phishing scams also.

[BaldMark]

good thing i use linux!

[phuzzphree]

Just a few notes and articles you all might be interested in:

I found these articles easy to read and understand.  I hope you do too...  You can never be too cautious when on the interenet.

Making Money:

Hint: Don't use paypal or like services. Check that the website you are about to use to make a purchase is using https: (This is geek speak for an encrypted connection to the website).  Use a cc that is dedicated to web purchases. Don't use a Check or debit card that is connected to your checking or savings account.  Check your cc statements carefully.  Order a credit report periodically througout the year.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/5407516.stm

staying safe online:

Hint: Windows Update, Virus Scan, Firewall.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/5414992.stm

Spam:

Hint: read everything in plain text.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6038236.stm

Quiz:

Hint: You may have the knowlege, but do you walk the talk?

http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6047560.stm

Chinese Attacks:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/03/29/ghostnet.cyber.espionage/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

E-mail can be deceiving.

Take Care all!

[BReady]

It extremely rare that a virus will infect your PC by just opening an email.  It's the opening of an attachment that does the damage.

It was my impression that as long as you had html email, you introduce a virus/worm/whatever to your computer. 

   
good thing i use linux!

I just installed Ubuntu on my media server for the living room.  This is the first time that I have installed linux on a home computer and was able to get all the hardware working! haha.

BReady