October 2009 Newsletter

Safe Computing

This topic is not going to go away. In almost every newsletter I have discussed computing security in some form or another. In this newsletter I want to discuss email fraud, spam and other malware via email attacks.

The bad guys are constantly trying to get us to provide identity and financial information, either directly or by providing user names and passwords for websites we commonly use. Often they use email to achieve this end. For example, you may receive an email purportedly from your bank saying you are overdrawn or your account has been attacked or you need to verify your balance. Whatever the reason, you will be asked to click a link within the email to supposedly allow you to resolve the problem. BUT THAT LINK IS NOT VALID! If you follow that link you will be taken to a website that will look like your bank website but will be the bad guys trying to scam you.

No honest business will ask you to click a link within an email; instead, if you get an email from your bank regarding an issue you need to resolve, you will be directed to go the bank’s (or business’s) website and sign-in to your account as you normally would. From there you will see how to resolve your problem. I recently got an email from my bank in which that is exactly what happened: I was told to sign in to my account as I normally would and I would then see an important message about my account. That is precisely what happened when I signed into my account on the bank website.

In the past two weeks, my company email has received about 20 of the following emails:
Taxpayer ID: info-00000112794020US
Tax Type: INCOME TAX
Issue: Unreported/Underreported Income (Fraud Application)
Please review your tax statement on Internal Revenue Service (IRS) website (click on the link below):
review tax statement for taxpayer id: info-00000112794020US <http://www.irs.gov.vtfii11.net/fraud_application/directory/statement.php?email=info@mct-tech.com&tid=info-00000112794020US>
Internal Revenue Service

The IRS does NOT send out email regarding account issues; all contact of this type would be done via US Postal Service mail. And the IRS, even it they used email, would never ask you to click on a link to resolve an issue.

The moral here is to be ever vigilant when opening and responding to emails from companies, organizations, government offices, etc. The bad guys are constantly trying to scam us. Call Jim at 847-644-0415 if you ever have any questions about your computer’s security or questions about suspect email.