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Then there are the plausible sounding
emails. One that has been around for a while
is the UPS receipt attachment. But in the
run-up to the end of the tax year there was
a quite credible looking request from the
Inland Revenue for bank details to
facilitate a refund. 99.99% of unsolicited
email attachments are viruses, if you don’t
recognise where something is from, check. |
Ultimately the computer user needs to be
aware of what they are doing, and the
implications. And if in any doubt…check!
Please feel free to forward a link to this
page to your staff. |
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This kind of ‘phishing’ attack has recently
deceived a couple of customers. If you give
your bank security details to someone else
then your bank and/or insurer is unlikely to
pay out anything removed from your business
bank account.
Friend or foe?
A technique, particularly
popular among Malware writers at the moment,
is to pretend that their software is an
Anti-Virus package and pop-up and alert
claiming your system is infected - once you
click OK to install their package your
system certainly is. These packages will ask
you to provide credit card details to
purchase their software, or lock the system
and demand money to unlock it again. If you
get such an alert, don’t accept it at face
value, check.
Along similar lines, a
recent development is the phone call from a
fake support company (often pretending to be
Microsoft) saying that your computer is
infected, and offering to clean it up – once
a credit card is provided to cover the
charge. This fraud (typically operated from
outside the EU), particularly targets home
users and often the elderly. The Police took
action to close 19 sites used for this scam
in April, but already new ones are
appearing, including www.onlinepccare.com.
If you do receive a call please report it to
trading standards via its website on
www.consumerdirect.gov.uk.
Anti-Virus
and Anti-Malware products can generally only
provide protection once a threat has been
recognised elsewhere. Modern operating
systems and browsers will pop up
confirmation dialogs if they think that an
action is dangerous, but they rely on the
user to decide. Ultimately the computer user
needs to be aware of what they are doing,
and the implications. And if in any
doubt…check!
Please do not hesitate to
call us with any of your security concerns.
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