There should be a special place in hell for these guys

[old_man]

I'm waiting for a FedEX delivery. I got an email last night supposedly from FedEX saying they were unable to deliver and click the link to print out a form to take along to pick up the delivery.

Guess what.....it was a virus.

It took me 8 hours of different scans and work to clean the virus in all its variations off of my computer. I'm a Computer Science type. Heaven help the normal person.

Like I said, there should be a special palce in hell for these types.

 

[scottmcneal]

Thank you, i'm waiting for stuff from fed-ex, i won't even click anything from them now

 

[ChiXJeff]

Not just FedEx. I've gotten them from UPS, DHL, and package delivery I've never heard of.

Never click on a link in an email from someone you don't PERSONALLY know. In particular, anything from a company, like banks, etc. And avoid opening attachments for the same reason.

 

[5-90]

Not just FedEx. I've gotten them from UPS, DHL, and package delivery I've never heard of.

Never click on a link in an email from someone you don't PERSONALLY know. In particular, anything from a company, like banks, etc. And avoid opening attachments for the same reason.

Concur. I always love it when something gets thrown at me from UPS - when I'm not expecting anything from UPS (or FedEx, or DHL, or ...)

Or the FBI (my current favourite.)

And I've noted variations on the "Nigerian 419" that are coming from supposed US soldiers overseas - which means they are assuming that I am stupid and that I WON'T get p***ed off that they're expropriating soldiers' names to try to take advantage of my goodwill.

"Thermonuclear LART party," anyone?

 

[xcm]

This is 2012, i'd recommend bulletproofing your web browser.

Mozilla firefox + NOSCRIPT , adblock, and flashblock = Happy internet browsing.

You should also be verifying links before you click them, hover your mouse cursor over the link, and it'll show where the link will ACTUALLY take you. Its very easy to parse links so that show you going to one site, a legit site. All while taking you to another.

It's also possible to spoof this using http logins, ie Http://cm:[email protected] takes you to site.com, but its also possible to deliberately fake a url to goto a third party attack site, all while looking like a legit url...

Long story short, is internet security is serious. This has been ignored for years. Now you know, and cannot ignore this any further.

 

[WrenchMonkey]

You should also be verifying links before you click them, hover your mouse cursor over the link, and it'll show where the link will ACTUALLY take you...

This. I know exactly zero about web security, but I can tell the difference between fedex.com and rapeyourdigitalanus.com...

:wave:

 

[ChiXJeff]

If you're using M$ Outlook, or a webmail interface in InternetExplorer, it's possible to obfuscate the link under some circumstances. Even hovering the mouse pointer over it will not reveal the real URL.

 

[old_man]

If you're using M$ Outlook, or a webmail interface in InternetExplorer, it's possible to obfuscate the link under some circumstances. Even hovering the mouse pointer over it will not reveal the real URL.

Bingo

 

[xcm]

Two ms applications that have multiple open source free replacements....

"BUT I LIKE INTERNET EXPLORER! AND ALL MY FAVORITES ARE ON THERE!"
^^ Ive had this conversations about microsoft software dozens of times with family, very similar to telling someone a d35 is a hazard. Sometimes they wont listen, and end up buying a new computer once they or someone else brick their computer.

Internet security... serious bidness.
Get firefox, someone else can recommend an email client as I use a web client so cant recommend anything. The same people who make firefox make an email client, but i havent used it. The fact that they take security seriously means its probably 40x better than outlook.

MS internet explorer, and MS outlook get so much attention from hackers, because a VERY LARGE chunk of computers on the internet have them installed, and many more people use them (or at least used to, havent looked at stats recently). Among other reasons.

Firefox + no script, if youve got any questions post up.

 

[xcm]

If you're using M$ Outlook, or a webmail interface in InternetExplorer, it's possible to obfuscate the link under some circumstances. Even hovering the mouse pointer over it will not reveal the real URL.

Sadly, this doesnt surprise me one bit, kinda why i recommend using a modern web browser, and securing it as step 1, then step 2 is being smart about daily browsing habits.

You cant treat a web browser like a college female student treats her KIA, fill it with gas, and go. You gotta check the tires from time to time, check the oil, and maybe have it changed.