From

Location

Message

Date Posted

Boise City, Oklahoma, USA

I receieved two messages purporting to be from him and both are SPAM. Do Not Open.

One starts, www.schwartz.de.gp ... other mentions hormones in the URL.

Do Not Open these.

Paul, your yahoo account has been hijacked it seems.

2/7/2012 5:55:28 PM

Muddy Waters

Yes I got one from Paul to,I opened it,How to make money from home crap!

2/7/2012 7:26:51 PM

Brooklyn Corner, Nova Scotia

OK that explains it, got one too.

2/7/2012 7:42:32 PM

Long Island,New York

Hmmm...maybe I got one too....I'll have to check my SPAM folder......

2/7/2012 8:26:39 PM

Colorado

One here too. Make money from home.

2/7/2012 11:36:19 PM

Frankfort Ohio

i got it damit

2/8/2012 5:52:30 AM

Williamsburg,KY

I got it also. Its a good reminder to change your password regularly.

2/8/2012 7:15:19 AM

Niagara Falls,NY

After seeing HHG write "how to make money from home crap",I thought I needed to write this. Frist, I'm not defending hackers. I thing invading someone's privicy is wrong, and to use it to advertise you businees is just stupid. That being said, I have to defend the home business. Making money from home is not crap! (I know this was not HHG attacking making money from home) Sometimes people see a statement like that and pass up some golden opportunities. I started a home business because it was the only way I could make some extra money to fund my pumpkin growing(which everyone knows takes a lot of money to do). The company I'm involved with has a 20 yr track record and is endorsed by Donald Trump. I'm very thankful that someone said to me "make money from home". But for the hackers-SHAME ON YOU!LEAVE GOOD PEOPLE ALONE!!

2/8/2012 11:15:05 AM

Muddy Waters

Your right punk'Lvr I didnt mean is was Crap!Just the way it was sent was crap!Just keepin it sraight.Thanks!

2/8/2012 4:20:14 PM

Niagara Falls,NY

HHG-I know you weren't. I guess it's just that some times people take things out of context. But what you wrote wasn't against home businesses but the scum bags who hack into other's privicy. It's good that people here alert others to possible computer viruses and such! A few months ago I opened something I thought was from a friend, Thank God for my virus protection! Keep up the good work and good luck this coming season to all!! -Don

2/8/2012 6:15:12 PM

Finland/Estonia, Island of Saaremaa

The technique the spammers are using is called "spoofing". It does not require them to "hack" anyones mail account, PC , or anythings. It is as easy as putting a program to read eg these message boards, recognize all the mail addresses people are distributing here (by eg finding the "@" in a character string)in their posts and trying those addresses. They have alter the email message header (this is very easy) so that when a receiver gets it she/he thinks it is from a friend or someone he knows and opens it. So this is a way for spammer to get people open the email without first recognizing it to be spam.

The thing is that they have big (bot)nets sending millions of spam emails, and they only need a fraction of a percent of the receivers take action and it will generate meaningfull business. And believe me enough people buy something or go for all kind of scams to make a good business for spammer.

The only way to avoid getting spoofed emails is not to put your email address available somewhere in the internet as such. Leave spaces, use "at" instead of @ or something. People can figure it out, maybe not the programs. It may help.....

Changing passwords frequently is a good practice though to prevent the bad guys doing some other nasty stuff.

2/9/2012 3:19:09 AM

Owensboro, Ky.

Juha, recently, I have noticed lot's of folks (mostly offering incredible seeds) are posting their email addy's w/ extra spaces in them!!! ie abc delta @ what ever . com
Do these extra spaces, help to stop hacking, spoofing, spaming etc? Thanks for yer input!!! Peace, Way ne

2/9/2012 10:56:50 PM

Finland/Estonia, Island of Saaremaa

The spammers are intelligent people and know people are doing this, and can build intelligence in their "browsing robots".

But on the other hand they know that there will be plenty on clean addresses as low hanging fruit for them. These guys are really good. If you are born in the middle of Siberia, acquired excellent programming skills (and there are enough this kind of people), going the hacker/cracker/virus writing criminal path is pretty much the only way to monetize their skills.

At least some smoke screen will help and is better than nothing. I do not think how people post their email addresses is related to the quality of what people are offering , (I do have 1502 and some other classics, lol).

Some good advice: never open an attachment of an email coming from a sender you do not know or you do not expect to receive. Update your operating system as requested for Windows, IE, Firefox etc. Have some kind of firewall (Windows Firewall will do) on all the time. Mac users are better off....

I'm a bit outdated of the recent development, and not a techie but for anyone interested how the bad guys make money on this here is an entertaining (non technical) presentation from Mikko Hyppönen, the Chief Research Officer of the company I used work for. He is pretty good in explaining things in understandable way.

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/security/ted-talk-fighting-viruses-defending-the-net/9099

2/10/2012 1:15:52 AM

Boise City, Oklahoma, USA

Spybot Search and Destroy is free and will get some bots and trojans and backdoors.

Superantispyware will root out cookies like nobody's business.

AVG does a pretty good firewall, and if you use their safe search toolbar it does catch most of the crap that you might miss if you browse for something (even a trusted website may be hacked and nobody knows it right away).

Malwarebytes is good if you think you have something calling out. It will block outgoing crap and give you the IP address so you can look up where it's trying to call.

Even if you get an email from someone you know, still be wary if it seems to be something 'strange' from that person.

Set your email client not to automatically open or display an email. This is how you can get 'hit' and infected. Gmail is good in you can put cursor over the 'from' and it will show you exactly what prints out as 'from' (it's not your bank contacting you, it's some schmoe JLazarausKruz89 @ accounts12.citibank.com which is a spoof)...

If you must have passwords and financial stuff, save your files to a thumb/flash drive and remove it from system until you need to use it. In case something comes cruising along then, it can't get to the information.

2/10/2012 3:16:59 AM

Finland/Estonia, Island of Saaremaa

You do not need stuff like Search & Destroy if your front line protection is in order. Proper AV & FW is enough. They will prevent any trojans and backbooks entering your system in the first place. Anti-Spam optional. Banks (at least here) never send you emails asking for anything. If "a bank" is asking some info by email that is normally always phisfing.

Trying to clean an infected PC is always tedious and leaves one in doubt. So do not let that get infected as it is pretty easy.

2/10/2012 4:29:42 AM

Eastern Pennsylvania

Skynet is now live. Soon our lives will be completely run by machines. And then, the terminators show up. Kill miles dyson!

2/10/2012 12:50:30 PM

Boise City, Oklahoma, USA

Juha, I got the clkdylatchkyclkdylocky on my system and it took a virgin install to get rid of it... I fought that for five months and it came from a third party adware juggler from a yahoo newsfeed site. They arrested several for it.

You don't know h*ll if you get one of the serious ones that can and do get through your firewall. Hence my list of suggestions and what they are best for, in my experience.

A good defence is worth it, but. I use AVG for firewall and it takes care of most everything; and I do have superantispyware for cookie burns (about once a week). The others I have used in the past and that is what they are good for...in my experience.

2/11/2012 2:11:52 AM

Finland/Estonia, Island of Saaremaa

OkieGal, proves my point. If you have to use any of those tools you mentioned, you are already in deep trouble and you should do something to your basic PC security setup. Just install any modern security suite (Norton, McAfee, F-Secure, Kaspersky), do first a full scan to the whole computer, leave it on for real time use, and you are well off. No one I know suffers anymore from viruses, spyware or a strangely behaving PC (excluding normal Windows experience,lol)

Or use the security option your Internet Provider is offering either bundled or as an subscription, as they will provide all the updates (not only the virus signatures which is done by all the AV vendors many times a day, but also sw updates). This may be the easiest way to be protected.

My last post to this topic.

2/11/2012 6:33:37 AM

Boise City, Oklahoma, USA

Only time I didn't have problems I ran Linux, but a lot of software won't run in a Linux environment.

I'm done too now.

2/12/2012 3:44:38 AM

Eastern Pennsylvania

The MAGPG addy just got brand new spam mail from the bots pretending to be Paul.

2/14/2012 10:28:16 PM

Boise City, Oklahoma, USA

Just got a new one tonight 'from' Paul. I did not open it but the URL mentioned had something to do with porn and kids. Disgusting whoever's spamming under his addy.

2/15/2012 1:42:58 AM