Beware of spam that scams, or it could end up costing you
4:43 p.m. Thursday, August 7, 2008
Wichita State University student Amy Coffman spends the day with coffee and her computer.
"I have it with me pretty much all the time," she says of her computer.
She uses it to keep up with her classes and keep in touch with family by e-mail.
"Most of the stuff, if it don't know who its from, I don't open it. I just delete it," she said.
The question is would she or millions of other e-mail users have deleted a dangerous one that appears to be news headlines from CNN?
The president of the technology company, The Bill Guy Tech Solutions, saw right through it.
"The CNN one has fake e-mail headers. It looks like it came from CNN, but the giveaway is -- you have to be a computer person you can go in and see where the e-mail come from -- the address you can see it's from a home computer," Bill Ramsey said.
While the average user is getting smarter about where they click, spammers are getting craftier, too.
"They want you to look at attachments so they want them to look as legitimate as possible to make it," he said.
This isn't the kind of spam that goes after your personal and financial information.
Ramsey calls it Internet graffiti.
"We have seen instances where creators will make a virus, and another person will make a virus that's better; and they'll have a war between them and there's little messages hidden inside the virus," Ramsey said.
The fight for bragging rights ends up costing you an average of $100 computer repair bill.
It's a chance Coffman isn't willing to take.
"If it something super important, the person can get a hold of me another way," she said.
Viruses can delete files and install unwanted programs to your computer.
The best way to protect your computer is to have a good anti-virus and spyware program.
Many can be downloaded for free from the Internet.
Comments
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Aug. 8, 2008 at 5:03 p.m. (Suggest removal)Matthew789 (anonymous)
If you use gmail or a good spam filter like SpamBully you should be able to easily filter these kinds of emails out.
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