Technofriends

Valentine’s day is nearing and like everyone else, Spammers and scammers too want to make the most of this day. What this means for you as an end user is, stay prepared to face the spam heat getting intense with emails from strangers asking for your Love. Its estimated that around 20% of spams will be about Valentines day as we approach the day. 

How Does the Valentines Day Email Spam Works?

Well, it follows a structure, spammer first sends you an email with a subject something like ‘Deeply in love with you’, ‘I knew I loved you’ , and ‘I love being with you’. In the body, usually you will have a link which points to a website that contains a malware. The website is designed in a way to trick users to install the malware binary. 

The other way could be wherein the spammer might attach some executable and ask the user to install it in order to see his or her lover online. Once the user installs the executable, his/her computer is in the grip of the spammer and they are then ready to make use of all the important information you have lying around from your email id user id and passwords, to your credit card and other bank details.

What are the basics of staying safe from Spam?

1.) First things first, ensure that you dont click on links or open attachments from strangers.

2.) If you have to enter your email information at a lot of places online, either use Disposable emails ( read about it at Stop Spam: Use Disposable Email Addresses) or you might also be interested in learning about the Gmail Email address tip ( Read about it at [How-To] Curb Spam with Two Gmail Addresses)

3.) If you are an active Twitter User, ensure that you dont tweet your email id on Twitter. Spammers and scammers harvest on the information available online and can easily write script to grab your email id. Once they have your email id, you know what all they can do. 

4.) Have a good Anti-Virus and Anti-Spyware application installed. You can read about Top 3 FREE Antivirus Applications and Best Anti-Spyware Applications.

Staying informed and preparing accordingly, is the best way to keep yourself safe from spammers and scammers.

Via

 

You can follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/vaibhav1981

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Related posts:

1. Stop Spam: Use Disposable Email Addresses
2. Angelina Jolie and Barack Obama are Spammer’s Choice Subjects (McAfee Spam Report)
3. [Valentines Day] Love Spam is growing
4. [Stop Spam] Don’t Tweet your Email IDs on Twitter
5. This Valentines day, play safe