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General => The Common Room => Topic started by: jillruss on Tuesday 18 April 06 13:25 BST (UK)
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Is anyone else receiving strange emails with attachments - about one a day - with odd titles like 'Re: Hi' or ' Re: Your Letter' ( when I haven't written one!), which just say 'please read the attached' or 'please open the attachment'? They're always from a different email address.
I'm a pretty suspicious type so I've immediately deleted them - I don't want to import a virus! If anyone else gets them, I think my advice would be to do the same. They may be perfectly harmless but, if so, why not tell you what they're about before they invite you to open the attachment?
I thought I should post this on RC as most of my emails are to do with family history research.
Jill
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It's a very common ploy to grab the attention of the curious. Just keep deleting them.
Barbara 8)
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My ISPs very kindly put all such mails into a Spam folder, I can then check if any are valid, otherwise I delete them with one click or the ISPs deleted them after a given period.
Gadget
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Been getting those for years. They're just spam.
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A lot are just spam but many also fall into the suspect variety regarding propagating virus and trojan attacks.
Some just note your address as a live one and like ET, phone home - which can open you up to more spam or more serious attacks.
safest path if its not something you are expecting junk it
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Depending who your email provider is, they have different ways of reporting spam. If it is the same email address you can block them - dont open them or reply to them - sometimes they are just looking for active emails to add to a mailing list and then you get even more spam!
Anna x
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I am so suspicious about emails now, if I don't know the sender or the subject looks slightly sus I delete.
I have been in trouble with my partner for this because I deleted a couple of enquries to this business. Well I ask you if someone sends an email with an enquiry about a Sussex trug entitled Hello what do you expect??!!
Kerry :o :o :o
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Kerry I would agree with you wholeheartedly ...... even if the message is from someone I know it still gets the full scan before i open any attachments (although my system is set up to do this automatically).
Personally I use Thunderbird for my email and its junk filters are pretty good at learning what is wanted and whats not ... (after you've trained it)
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I have a spam filter provided by my ISP Wanadoo. Trouble is the junk senders are getting round that. For instance if you filter words like viagra they get round it by now typing v/agra.
Very annoying!!!!
Kerry >:( >:( >:( >:(
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Don't open an email if you think it's suspicious. Especially if it contains an attachment.
Andrew
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I have received a couple of strange emails lately with my semi wrong email address given. The first three letters were correct and the next five letters were wrong, but the correct number of letters, then @xxxxxxxx was all correct. So how did they do that ??? The email invited me to go look at their web site. I deleted of cause, :) no way do I look at web site from people I don't know.
Gem
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So how did they do that ???
"trial and error" mostly !!
one of my email adresses begins with 'bobc' so I get emails addressed to all sorts of names beginning with 'bobc' @my-provider. Either the spammers have found lists of names somewhere, or they have programs to generate likely names and they just send out thousands, on the offchance, a few will be right.
Unlike the older, snail-mail mailshot, where they at least had to pay for the paper and postage, it costs them absolutely nothing
I can only repeat what the others have said:
- delete anything suspicious
- delete anything from unknown addresses
- delete anything from unplausible addresses
- if you get anything from a known address, but with a suspicious sounding title,
call them first to check if it is from them
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Example for the last point:
I received an email from a friend, headed "Security Alert"
As this is also a common spammer/virus trick to make you open mails, I phoned him before opening it.
In this case it was OK, he had received this alert and wanted to pass it on to his friends, but i was happier that I had checked first.
Bob
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Thanks Bob,
About five years ago my computer was infected with a virus that could not be cleaned by a professional, so I am now very, very wary of emails I do not recognize. I just delete.
My advice is, do not be curious, it is too expensive. ;D
Gem
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Lately there has been a spate of e mails being sent (usually by your contacts) warning you that there is a new virus being sent via e mail. Some of these are genuine but others actually have the virus attached to the back or the e mail. They can cause various problems but the main ones being that they shut down your internet connection and/or power to your computer. The worse problem is that some are not picked up with norton or Mcafee. I urge anyone who gets one of these e mails to scan all possible drives as soon as the e mail is opened or where possible do not open the e mail and just delete it. The virus can only continue to spread if it is then passed on to your contacts so if in doubt, dont forward it!
I have seen lately that many people are getting internet problems and problems with power turning off, this COULD be the cause but of course other problems can do this too. If you are getting problems and your virus protector does not pick up anything then a free version of virus protection (AVG)that does pick them up and can safely be downloaded from various places on the net.
I hope you all remain virus free!!!
;)
Moderator Comment: topics merged
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My ISP has a virus filter and recently introduced a spam filter, set it to "very severe" and didn't tell its customers. We didn't realise that we weren't getting most of our legit emails. Then they emailed everybody to tell us we could go into our accounts, check what had been blocked, and change the settings. Even reset to "normal" it filters stuff you actually want until you tell it to release them. Still, it cuts out all the obvious spam.
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Unfortunately we have not yet invented the perfect machine i.e. one with the speed and memory of a computer but the flexibility of a humans learning system and any junk mail filter will still let some through while stopping what are legitimate mails.
Berlin Bob's advice is sound
I can only repeat what the others have said:
* delete anything suspicious
* delete anything from unknown addresses
* delete anything from unplausible addresses
* if you get anything from a known address, but with a suspicious sounding title,
call them first to check if it is from them
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Too right Falkyrn
The problem is when a computer is invented with human capacities I'll be out of a job!!!
My partner sells Sussex Trugs and for obvious reason a lot of legit emails to him get dumped in our junk folder. I always check very carefully.
Kerry ;D
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I had to change my e-mail because I was getting 200 a day, some in spam but some slipped through. I made the mistake of putting my address on Genforum before you could hide it.
A lot of them were for extending a part of the anotomy that I as a woman, don't have. Someone also wanted to clean my drains. A long way to come from America.
Then there was the Egyptian pilot who wanted me to help him set up a business.
I go back to look at that old address now and again and occasionally find a contact from one of the Family History Areas I subscribed to. Takes me ages to go through them.
I don't get any now at my present address. Sometimes they put legit e-mails in the spam section
Sylviaann
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I'd agree with all the previous advice; I had to close my yahoo account as I was getting 20+ emails a day telling me that seven bank accounts I don't have had been hacked by spammers and the only way round it was to send all my security details by return.... Obvious spam, but very annoying, as were the dozens from Third World countries telling me that for access to my bank account I would get a percentage of £17million AND save lives in war torn countries at the same time. Just became tiresome! And don't get me started on the porno ones....... Now, I only give my email out to trusted people and always tick the box if I'm buying online to say I don't want email updates which seems to help enormously.
I'd say if it claims to be from your bank, then phone the bank to check before you do anything else and just don't open any attachments you are not expecting.
Anna
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It's a very common ploy to grab the attention of the curious. Just keep deleting them.
Barbara 8)
Yep i agree :)
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I have stopped using my NTInternet address because of this spam/junk/crap emails. I have not emptied it since the beginning of the year and, to date, there are now 2705 emails there.
I cleared all emails down at the end of last year because I was fed up of the junk and decided to leave it alone. I have emails on there now ranging from 1 Jan 1998 to 15 April 2008 (now that's clever!!)
This has become worse since BT sold their emails out to Yahoo. My aim is now to leave it until the mail box is full so nothing else can get through.
Just a second question, when you say do not open the email, does this include having a message preview option. My emails have a preview pane so I read from there (using my new email address).
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Its the actual e mail which should not be opened. A preview from another source does not open it, it just relays the info/text contained within it. A preview can install a virus but the file attached would have to be opened in order for it to activate.
If it is already active then yes it can be transferred.otherwise no.
;)