Topband: Spam on the Reflector!

[Keith Jillings (G3OIT)]

On 19/06/2013 19:26, Charlie Cunningham wrote:

> Thanks for the info. I know that I did receive the "Jim Koshmider" e-mail
> just this morning and I did click on it to see what it was and got no
> warning. Wish I had seen your post first!! Any tips/pointers on how to check
> my machine for the infection, and how to remove it?

If you have a reasonable virus protection, it will have blocked it if 
you did click on it.   There are lots of AV solutions on the market, 
some free and some paid-for.  Opinions vary widely, but I reckon the 
free ones are as good as the paid-for:  I use Avast Free (you have to be 
persistent to find that on their website, because they try to sell you 
the paid version).
AVG Free is also generally well rated.   You can pay $100 and more for 
AV, and not fare any better than with the free ones.

If you think you have an infection on your computer, then the generally 
favoured way of checking is to run Malwarebytes Anti-Malware.  Google it 
(I don't put links in e-mails - guess why!).  You may find that it wants 
to install, then download more, then update that.  It's a bit of a faff 
sometimes, but when it's all done it will check your machine and tell 
you what problem (if any) you have.

Yahoo's mail server was hacked a couple of weeks ago - I've had spam or 
virus e-mails from most people I know who have a Yahoo e-mail address. 
I don't know if Yahoo are acknowledging the problem yet.

I spent some of last week clearing out the computers of a couple of 
ladies in our congregation, and setting them up with decent AV (Avast, 
needless to say).   The friends whose accounts were used to infect them 
were not to blame in any way - their address books were copied by the 
hackers and used to send the nasties.

It's all part of the fun!

Keith
G3OIT