Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Never Trust Your E-Mail

This story is incredible! I never click on links sent to me from someone I don't know unless I know I've signed up for something. Many people follow this line of thinking so somethings legitimate e-mails (like my own, seldom sent newsletters) get ignored.

Unfortunately there must be hundreds of thousands (millions?) of people who ignore all the warnings out there and click on unknown e-mails. McAfee sponsored an experiment to see what would happen if people actually clicked and answered those annoying SPAM e-mails. The results were funny and frightening.

In her guise as Penelope Retch, Mooney answered the e-mail that came into her account. "I'd see an interactive spam, open it, click on it and asked to be removed. That would only make it worse," she says. "They'd say 'no.'"

.......
Some oddball facts that emerged from the experiment are that fake Chase.com was the most common phishing e-mail spotted during the project, and that the British volunteers received the most Nigerian scam e-mail.

Feel safe opening my newsletters folks (besides the fact that I haven't even sent one out in two months!!!). No spam there. But beware of scammers. You never know what that "FREE" offer will cost you.

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