Originally, I had planned on adding approximately one article a
week. However, already this week I have received several emails
trying to get personal information from me or wanting to do harm
to my computer, so I wanted to post the information concerning
them . The names for many of the links that follow are the web
site that they are from. Here are the details:
First, I received three emails with “Subject: IRS notification”.
Two emails were from “support.manager@irs.gov” and one was
from info.manager@irs.gov. The first two emails had an attached
file which my anti-virus program deleted and added ***VIRUS**
in front of the subject, which made me suspicious. If you receive
an email like this, it is a scam intended to get your personal
information and possibly harm your computer. Do NOT open any
attachment and delete or forward the email to phishing@irs.gov
and then delete it. I searched and found the following on the internet:
scamtrends.com
irs phishing scam
forbes-irs phishing scam
Then there was the one with “Subject: Deactivation of Your Email
Address”. This email starts off with: “THIS MESSAGE IS FROM
OUR TECHNICAL SUPPORT TEAM”. It goes on to state that
failing to follow through and send the requested information will
result in the “deactivation” of your email address. Simply, this is
a phishing scheme – wanting to collect your email log in information.
Just delete the email and ignore it. Here are a couple of web sites
with more details:
fraudpreventionunit.org
safecomputing
Next, there was “Subject: Uniform traffic ticket”. This email
indicates that it is from New York State and that you should
print the attached ticket and send it in…
However, the attachment probably contains a virus. You should
not open either the email or the attachment and instead delete
the email. Here are a couple of web sites with more information:
snopes.com
urbanlegends.about.com
Lastly, was a different twist on the “I have money for you” scam.
This one had “Subject: Thank you very much for your anticipated
co-operation” and was supposedly from the FBI. There are several
versions of this floating around and all of them are scams, trying to
get your information. The best action is to just delete the email.
For additional information, see:
scamwarners
spamcaution
If you receive an email that you are not sure of, don’t open it.
Especially don’t open any attachments. When in doubt, copy
the subject line into the search box in Google or your favorite
search engine and click on search. If the email is something to
avoid, you will probably get many results indicating that.
One last thing before I close, don’t be surprised if you see an
increase in emails with malicious attachments. I just saw an
article suggesting that these email attacks are again on the
increase. See:
Brace for email attachment malware spree
Thanks for stopping by…
