Hi, Carmen.
Last time i visited one of these newsgroups, I used my
real email address. Ever since then I have been getting
emails claiming to be from microsoft. These emails contain
viruses.
Sorry to hear that. Unfortunately, most of us have learned the hard way not
to use our real E-mail addresses when posting to public message boards.
Spammers use bots to harvest these E-mail addresses daily.
Is there any way to report the senders to an isp
or microft or do any thing about this?
Studies show that most of these "senders" aren't really the senders of these
E-mail messages. These E-mail addresses were harvested from the address
books of infected computers or from spammers' E-mail lists, then sent from
zombie computers in mass mailings. The real culprits are rarely prosecuted
because they hide their tracks so well.
Your current E-mail address is already compromised, but there are several
things you can do to prevent this from happening to your other or future
E-mail addresses.
1.) Don't use your real E-mail address when posting to the message boards.
You can modify your real E-mail address so that a human can easily figure
out your E-mail address, but a computer can't. For example, if your E-mail
address were (e-mail address removed), then you could change it to
Carmen@REMOVE_THISmycompany.com on your reply address. You could also use a
disposable E-mail address from a remailer like
www.SpamGourmet.com or
www.Mailinator.net to avoid the spam. I use these and they work like a
charm.
2.) Install a fire wall and antivirus software on your computer and make
sure that you apply all updates as soon as they are published. The zombie
computers that broadcast the mass mailings on their broadband connections
don't have either of these safeguards.
3.) Keep your Windows operating system and E-mail application updated with
the latest security patches. The zombie computers usually don't have either
of these safeguards, either.
4.) Don't open E-mail from anyone you aren't expecting an E-mail from.
5.) Don't open E-mail attachments, even from someone that you know, unless
you are expecting these attachments.
HTH.
Gunny
See
http://www.QBuilt.com for all your database needs.
See
http://www.Access.QBuilt.com for Microsoft Access tips.
(Please remove ZERO_SPAM from my reply E-mail address, so that a message
will be forwarded to me.)
