The Computer Clarity Blog

Filter Spam

Because most email scams begin with unsolicited commercial email, you should take measures to prevent spam from getting into your mailbox. Most email applications and web mail services include spam-filtering features, or ways in which you can configure your email applications to filter spam. Consult the help file for your email application or service to find out what you must do to filter spam.

You may not be able to eliminate all spam, but filtering will keep a great deal of it from reaching your mailbox. You should be aware that spammers monitor spam filtering tools and software and take measures to elude them. For instance, spammers may use subtle spelling mistakes to subvert spam filters, changing “Potency Pills” to “Potençy Pills.”

Regard Unsolicited Email with Suspicion

Don’t automatically trust any email sent to you by an unknown individual or organization. Never open an attachment to unsolicited email. Most importantly, never click on a link sent to you in an email. Cleverly crafted links can take you to forged web sites set up to trick you into divulging private information or downloading viruses, spyware, and other malicious software.

Spammers may also use a technique in which they send unique links in each individual spam email. Victim 1 may receive an email with the link <http://dfnasdunf.example.org/>, and victim 2 may receive the same spam email with the link <http://vnbnnasd.exaple.org/>. By watching which links are requested on their web servers, spammers can figure out which email addresses are valid and more precisely target victims for repeat spam attempts.

Remember that even email sent from a familiar address may create problems: Many viruses spread themselves by scanning the victim computer for email addresses and sending themselves to these addresses in the guise of an email from the owner of the infected computer.

Treat Email Attachments with Caution

Email attachments are commonly used by online scammers to sneak a virus onto your computer. These viruses can help the scammer steal important information from your computer, compromise your computer so that it is open to further attack and abuse, and convert your computer into a ‘bot’ for use in denial-of-service attacks and other online crimes. As noted above, a familiar “from” address is no guarantee of safety because some viruses spread by first searching for all email addresses on an infected computer and then sending itself to these addresses. It could be your friend’s computer is infected with just such a virus.

Use Common Sense

When email arrives in your mailbox promising you big money for little effort, accusing you of violating the Patriot Act, or inviting you to join a plot to grab unclaimed funds involving persons you don’t know in a country on the other side of the world, take a moment to consider the likelihood that the email is legitimate.

Install Antivirus Software and Keep it Up to Date

If you haven’t done so by now, you should install antivirus software on your computer. If possible, you should install an antivirus program that has an automatic update feature. This will help ensure you always have the most up-to-date protection possible against viruses. In addition, you should make sure the antivirus software you choose includes an email scanning feature. This will help keep your computer free of email-born viruses.

Install a Personal Firewall and Keep it Up to Date

A firewall will not prevent scam email from making its way into your mailbox. However, it may help protect you should you inadvertently open a virus-bearing attachment or otherwise introduce malware to your computer by following the instructions in the email. The firewall, among other things, will help prevent outbound traffic from your computer to the attacker. When your personal firewall detects suspicious outbound communications from your computer, it could be a sign you have inadvertently installed malicious programs on your computer.

Learn the Email Policies of the Organizations You Do Business With

Most organizations doing business online now have clear policies about how they communicate with their customers in email. Many, for instance, will not ask you to provide account or personal information via email. Understanding the policies of the organizations you do business with can help you spot and avoid phishing and other scams. Do note, however, that it’s never a good idea to send sensitive information via unencrypted email.

Configure Your Email Client for Security

There are a number of ways you can configure your email client to make you less susceptible to email scams. For instance, configuring your email program to view email as “text only” will help protect you from scams that misuse HTML in email.

Computer Clarity

How Our Technicians Secure Your Computer with our Clarity Shield Services
In this video, I will demonstrate how our technicians protect your computers security
with our Clarity Shield Services.

Computer Clarity

Computer malware is to the personal computer as AIDS is to the human immune system. Both conditions progressively reduce the effectiveness of each immune system while leaving the subject susceptible to subsequent opportunist infections. The computer’s immune system is its security software. The antivirus and firewall are the two most important components of your computers security, or immune system. Upon a successful infection, most of the common forms of malware today will immediately attack and disable the security software rendering your computer defenseless against the current infection and against other viruses that find your computer. Many viruses will even go out on the internet and invite other viruses to come into the computer too. This is part of the reason the computer slows down tremendously after a virus has found its way into your computer. One virus gets in, disables security, invites its buddies, and they all have a party in your hard drive with your processor and your information.

So, how does that first virus get in? If this antivirus is the immune system, why ain’t my computer immune? It is a very fair question. However, there are several answers.

First, many malicious programs are designed to look like something else. Some try to look like Windows Warming messages. Others try to look like an antivirus program. These two examples are like a fake police or security officer seeking entry into your house. They look official and if you let them in, that is when they will do their damage. Another example of a virus th at looks like something else comes to us in the form of “FREE” downloads: free music, videos, games, and software. Not all that is free is bad; but much of it is. But a simple search on Google will tell you what has happened to others who have downloaded it. If it legitimate, you will see websites telling you who makes it, what it does, and why it’s free. If it is bad, you will see ten thousand websites, blogs and tech forums all talking about how bad it is. In a heartbeat, you can know if it is ok to use or if you should run like you were being chased by a bunch of birds and swine with the flu. In all of these cases, the virus got in because the user invited it in. Like with a vampire, your invitation renders all of your defenses powerless.

The other way these viruses get into a computer is when the security system has failed. If the antivirus or firewall looses functionality or fails to update, the immune system is down and the computer is defenseless. Just as with AIDS (Acute Immune Deficiency Syndrome) if the computer’s immune system is deficient, it will get sick and, without serious attention, it will die.

Computer Clarity