Originally posted by orionthehunter
reply to post by saltheart foamfollower
In case you didn't know, the virus goes out to people in your email contact list. That means you may know the people you got the email from. That
would be a reason to open an email.
2 years ago, i had an email from an email address belonging to a local Labour party member i know, i should add i am not Labour anymore having
defected to Liberal Democrat.
I immediately noticed the syntax was broken English where the person i know uses correct English diction and a link pointed to a dodgy electronic
consumer goods site run by somebody Chinese, the email content was saying how fantastic and cheap the site was and i should buy something immediately,
further checks confirmed my suspicions that it was dodgy as they come and plenty of rip offs mentioned in a search.
I apprised the member that he'd either been hacked or more likely had activated a virus which accessed his email contact list and autogenerated spam,
advising him to sort his computer out, i was pretty pissed off because he was in possession of sensitive Labour party material and should have been
more secure as par of course.
orionthehunter is absolutely correct, just because the sender is known to you, doesn't mean it is safe because a virus on the computer of somebody
known to you could have similarly been infected and the infection autogenerated the virus and sent out to all contacts, this is a very common viral
propagation operandi and all email should be discerned as to validity when containing attachments or links, no matter who the mail is from, very
commonly the syntax will differ from the person you know belongs to an email address if it is an autogenerated virus as rarely does the original text
change and it's not yet possible to alter language to feign validity as being the form of communication used by somebody you know, it will differ some
how, most people have their own way of putting something, expressions and such and this to me is a dead give away, isn't hard to think about the
syntax and phrases used etc may or may not be as should be if was from the real person sending. [Give it a few years and AI virals will be able to
tailor language and syntax etc, unfortunately, not yet though as far as i know.]
Something i always do is right click on a link before actuating and selecting properties from the context menu, this allows you to see where the link
points to even if in the email it is changed to look bone fide.
There's several tell tale signs about a dodgy link which could alert you it may be a link to malware or backdoor virus/trojan, like unintelligable
domain name like randon letter and/or numbers, the link points to elsewhere to what is in the email to a very unlikely named domain which indicates
it's an unused site which has been hacked for criminal purpose, usually something does not look right, always check the link underneath, bringing it
up in properties, or right click and 'copy shortcut' then paste somewhere allows one to see where links actually point to, not always as you see in
the email, especially if purporting to be from your bank or something, on page will look like it points to the bank, underneath it will point to
something completely unrelated.
And yes, .pdf is now more complex a format from several years ago and is now a common used vehicle to infect and do all sorts of shenanigans, the .pdf
is such a versatile format nowadays, i am more suspicious of .pdf these days than i am .doc or graphic formats which were more commonly used in years
past.
Always Use Email Defensively, Always, if at all unsure, reply in a fresh composed mail to sender to check validity before opening an attachment
or actuating a link, or call them whatever, a simple verification can avert all sorts of 'issues' a virus can cause, including stealing your ID and
banking details if kept on your computer which could cost you thousands of pounds/dollars/euros whatever.
The Internet is not a friendly, fluffy place, it is hostile and there is prolific cyber crime occuring every minute of the day.
Peace.
edit on 11-9-2010 by DeltaPan because: Correct typo's, add to 3rd paragraph as to email content. Add to 5th re: AI virals.