Spam!

[donsayers]

Having received a lot of email purportedly from members of this forum but actually being spam directing me to websites of an unsalubrious nature, I would suggest that people check their PCs for trojans and the Moderators of this forum check the security of their mailing lists and the Owners club ditto.

[stevejgreen]

Re: Spam!

A little more info might help the member in question, but it wont be the first time that a phishing attack has resulted in rogue emails.
I have to ask though, why open a link in an email. especially when a hover over the link can give you a great idea where it might be directing you to.
Take care out there.

[donsayers]

Re: Spam!

I have informed the members, plural. And I did not open the links but googeled the link to see what I was being led to.

[stevejgreen]

Re: Spam!

I wonder how many of them were BT customers, @btinternet or btopenworld.com addresses, I did see a suspicious looking email purportedly from them a couple of days ago.
Like any unexpected emails I am the ultimate sceptic.
If you receive a 'better than true' or unexpected email, it's best to ignore or delete it. If it is really important, the sender, assuming they know you, will have another method of contacting you.

[cameronfurnival]

Re: Spam!

Hi Don - more info would be useful as the site is not reporting anything untoward at all. Please can you send me a copy of one of the emails and I will investigate. there havent been any reports of phishing, scams or spam attacks in four years. Rest assured i will get to the bottom of it if its coming from our servers. Incidentally there are no mailing lists for this forum unless I create them specifically which I tend not to do. It is much more likely that a single member has picked up a nasty and it has gone through his contacts (whcih will obviously include many members on here).

Best wishes

PS All members are advised to use up-to-date antivirus software which includes email monitoring.

[milliemarlin]

Re: Spam!

It is my understanding that spammers will substitute the sender’s id to that of an innocent person. So it is not safe to assume the email originated from that person. In fact I would say it is unlikely.
Paul

[David]

Re: Spam!

It is my understanding that spammers will substitute the sender’s id to that of an innocent person. So it is not safe to assume the email originated from that person. In fact I would say it is unlikely.
Paul

This is true. I don't want to be bombarded with requests for help but I've been in IT security for 25 years so can help if anyone is really struggling, advice is cheap

[Blue Marlin]

Re: Spam!

It is my understanding that spammers will substitute the sender’s id to that of an innocent person. So it is not safe to assume the email originated from that person. In fact I would say it is unlikely.
Paul

I find if you hover your mouse pointer over the senders name it will show you the full email address which is usually an obscure location somewhere in the world.

[stevejgreen]

Re: Spam!

Anti virus software with email monitoring is not a Panacea for all ills.
Many of the current scams, especially those linking to pages where you are required to enter usernames and passwords are very cleverly written to look exactly like a familiar website. Many are perfectly safe to open so don't set off the alarms that antivirus software enables. It's the subsequent human initiated steps that cause the problems.
The guiding rule is never to follow a link. If you think it's genuine, open a new browser window and type in a known 'safe' address. Or contact the organisation via a different method.

Many unsuspecting people use the same username and password to log on to multiple sites. This is what the scammers are hoping to find, it means that they can repeatedly try your username and password automatically on numerous sites in the hope of striking gold.
One tip is to use a different password for each site you use. That might sound unmanageable as we are repeatedly told not to write our passwords down, but should your property be robbed, that's the last thing that a burglar will be looking for, a single piece of paper. The easy way to remember your password is to use an easily remembered password 'core' then to add to it.
Your Marlin password might be 1234, so change it to 1234marlin, your bank 1234hsbc, etc. It can be further encoded as 1h2s3b4c or any other repeatable sequence, provided you follow a similar pattern on every password it becomes second nature.

Finally on this discourse, any reputable website requiring your password, does not keep a record of that password. The reason why if you click on 'forgot password' they send you a new randomly generated one never your original. If a website claims to know your password or asks you to repeat it for confirmation, over the phone for example, leave that website or organisation immediately their security is inadequate.

I hope this helps and protects a few people.

[Dane_Rescueman]

Re: Spam!

They are clever but I never answer them or click any link. I've just had one purporting to be from ebay telling me that I haven't sent something that was paid for last week. I have not had anything for sale on ebay for 9 months!! The address looks correct but digging down the address row it appear to have originated on the African continent. There is no message on the official ebay site.

Oh NO, More Spam!

[b_caswell]

Re: Spam!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8huXkSaL7o

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eggs

[HairyDave]

Re: Spam!

That Spam burger looks great , I love it.