Public Service Announcements
Two computer-security things:
- Y'all know not to open unsolicited attachments, yes? And that the huge number of emails you've probably been getting that claim to be from Microsoft (or that claim to be delivery failure messages) aren't really? And that the attachments on those emails are viruses? (Or, technically speaking, worms.) See Symantec's page on the W32.Swen.A@mm worm for details. Note that in some cases, just opening up the email message (not the attachment) can cause the worm to start running. Also note that the worm, once running, may display a fake "MAPI32 Exception" error dialog box, asking you to type in a bunch of identifying information, including your password for your email account. If you're not sure whether your system's already been infected, use antivirus software. If you don't use Windows, you can ignore this item.
- Subtler and less pervasive, but potentially more damaging, is the fake eBay mail that's going around. (I think I've seen it before, but I got two copies this morning.) The Subject line reads "0fficial Notice for all eBay users"; note that the first letter there is a zero, not a capital O, which should be the first clue that this is fake. If you read the message in a mailer that interprets and displays HTML, it looks pretty legit: appears to be from a real eBay email address, provides a real eBay URL for you to double-click (or just click, in some mailers) to update your account info. However, if you look at the HTML source code of the message, you can see that the URL you go to if you double-click is not in fact the URL that you see. This is because the text of a link can say anything. I can make a link where the text says http://www.cnn.com/ but have it actually go wherever I like. I find it a surprisingly hard-to-recognize illusion; if the text of the link is a URL, I very much want to believe that that's the URL I'll go to if I click the link. (Also, the actual URL you go to is obscured by a couple of clever tricks, so if you only glance quickly at the source code the real URL may still look legit; you have to look carefully to see why it's not.) Anyway, upshot is: this is a scam, the mail is not from eBay, and you should absolutely not follow the link. The server they point to appears to be down now, but this scam will indubitably crop up again; be prepared.
