Phishing – It’s Signs and Your Options

Phishing is the act of some individual sending an email to a user in an attempt to scam the user to release personal information. Is it easy to determine if it’s a scam? Sometimes – but not always. I hope to give you enough examples and information to help you to safeguard yourself from these unsavory individuals.

In addition, sometimes the email is sent to malicious software so as to render your computer helpless. Thus, it is important that you do not click on the link they provide, because that is the trigger that will load the software to your system.

EXAMPLES OF PHISHING

You receive hundreds of emails in your mailbox, but one email catches your eye – it directs you to a website, requesting that you need to update your personal information. It requests such personal information as:

passwords

credit card numbers

social security number

bank account numbers

“It appears to be legitimate”, you say to yourself. And you also notice that the emails are from companies that you have been doing business with for a while. Warning: The website could be bogus.

Here are several examples of phishing in action.

1. E-mails stating they are from E-bay and they feel that your account may have been compromised and would like you to verify your information with they so conveniently supply. DO NOT click on it.

2. E-mails from Paypal or your bank asking that you verify your information because they feel that your account has been compromised, or heaven forbid, suspended. Same scenario, different company. DO NOT click on the link.

3. E-mail that states that an unauthorized transaction has occurred on your account. Please click the link below and confirm your identity. DO NOT.

4. Here’s a work at home scam – We have seen your resume on Monster and feel you would fit our position. If you are interested, please go to our website, look over the experience required and submit your resume if you have this background. Website is professional looking, offer looks good – but it could be a scam.

WHAT ARE THEY AFTER

In the above examples they are after information about you, be it passwords, credit cards, social security numbers, anything that can identify you – and that which they can use to profit from you.

The job email is used to verify that the email address is a true blue, active email address. What do they do with this info – they sell these accounts to spammers for good money. They need to verify your email address—because if the spammers come up empty – this person’s business is dead.

HOW TO VERIFY SAFELY

1. If they want you to verify your account, do not cut and paste, or use the link they provide in the email. Close your Internet session, open a new session and enter the site that you have on record to verify.

2. Emails requesting resumes – Verify their account before you send your resume. When verifying – these red flags should be considered:

1) If they are hesitant to provide a phone number – might be a scam.

2) If their business address is not verifiable –might be a scam.

3) If the website is new – might be a scam.

4) If they use a large company’s name—and that company never heard of them – might be a scam.

5) Again, verify this information before you send your resume.

WAYS TO PROTECT YOURSELF

Here are some quick tips to protect you and your computer system.

1. Use anti-virus software and a firewall – keep them up to date.

2. If you have a broadband connection make sure you have a firewall in place.

3. Don’t email personal or financial information.

4. Before providing personal information – search to see if the site is secure – look for a lock icon. However, remember not all phishers are stupid – in fact, they could be computer savvy enough to forge security icons. Thus, look for a site whose link looks like this: https://www.somename.com -- this shows that it is a secure site.

5. Coupons from respected companies – Verify that it is a true-blue coupon from the company – I had one coupon sent to my email address from what I thought was Staples. Verified it with Staples – not a coupon honored by Staples. When on the Internet – if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it still may not be a duck!

6. When making transactions on the Internet – be it online banking, Paypal, Internet Gold, etc. – complete your transaction, log out of the website, and close out of your Internet Explorer—and then continue with a new session of Internet Explorer.

WHERE TO FORWARD SPAM THAT IS PHISHNG

If you encounter spam that is phishing, or are a victim of a phishing scam, you can forward the information to spam@uce.gov and to the company, bank or organization that the email may have stated they are from. In many cases, the other organizations have information on their website where you can report the attempted scam.

In addition, if you have been scammed, and you wish to file a complaint – go to ftc.gov.

To conclude, no one is immune to spam or a scam. But try to be ever vigilant and do your due diligence with anything you do on the Internet. But being human is a scammer’s hope – they know that most will ignore the bait, but some will be tempted. So, if you so humanly slip, and succumb to a phishing scam, you can report them to ftc.gov.

About the Author:
Vickie J Scanlon has a BBA degree in Administrative Management and Marketing. Visit her site at: www.myaffiliateplace.biz for free tools, articles, ebooks, how to info, affiliate opportunities, products and services – to meet your budget and needs.
Article Source: http://www.articles2k.com

Scams, Spams, Viruses and Spyware - Protecting Yourself Online

On the Internet, there's so much to see and do. You can communicate, shop, play and learn. It's a veritable treasure trove of information and activities for just about anyone of any age. Unfortunately, just like in the real world, everything also has a downside. For the Internet, that downside includes, scams, spam, viruses and spyware. Basically, people who want to take advantage of you. This article will give you some basics for protecting yourself online.

Scams

One of the worst scams comes to you via email, in the form of "phishing" emails. They come to you in the form of an email from banks, eBay, a store, Paypal or other business or financial institution. The email will have the name of the company in the from area and the email may look real, complete with corporate logos and official sounding text. Don't be fooled, however. A reputable financial institution or business will never ask you for your username, password, account number or other sensitive personal information via email. NEVER click on the link to the site provided in their email. If you are unsure if the email is fake, then open up your browser and manually type in the URL of the company's website. Go there and login and see if they are requesting something from you there. Chances are, they aren't. You can report these emails or simply delete them.

Other scam emails may come to you from foreign countries asking you to hold a large sum of money for them, in return you get a percentage of the money, usually millions of dollars. If it sounds too good to be true, it is. This scam has been around for years, don't fall for it. It's just a way to get your bank account information and to empty it before you even realize what has happened.

Scam websites are also a problem, whether it's a fly by night store, a phony eBay seller or a store that's actually just trying to get you to give them your personal information for marketing purposes, you can easily avoid these by checking eBay feedback, store reviews via Google and the BBB and other consumer complaint websites.

The solution to scams? Be vigilant. Never click a URL in an email that looks the least bit suspicious. Always check the feedback, reviews and ratings of sellers before buying and never, ever give away your personal information to a website that looks suspicious.

Spam

Spam can be a huge problem if you have had your email address for any length of time. No matter how well you protect your email address by not giving it out to anyone you don't know, you're still going to get spam. You can, however, minimize the time you spend dealing with spam by adjusting the options in your ISP or web mail preferences section. For most web email addresses, like Yahoo Mail, Gmail and Hotmail, you can adjust or train the spam filters so that spam rarely makes it to your main inbox but instead ends up in your Bulk Mail or Junk Mail folder. For AOL users, they have a similar Spam Mail folder and email options which you can adjust to your liking. For stand alone email programs using POP email boxes, any good email program will have spam and junk mail filters as well as allow you to set rules for which mail is deleted, flagged or sent in to the Junk Mail folder according to preferences you set. If you still have a problem, you may consider a third party program like MailWasher at mailwasher.net or SingleFin from singlefin.net. Both programs are free and should help solve or minimize your spam problem.

Viruses

Viruses are a common problem if you spend any time online. That greeting card attachment your friend forwarded you contained more than a greeting card, you've now got a virus! Viruses can slow your computer down, slow down your web surfing or they can do more serious damage like relay sensitive information like your bank login information to a hacker or at the worst end, erase your entire hard drive! To prevent these problems, you should never open attachments unless it's been scanned by a virus program first, also don't download any files from suspicious websites, stick to the well known download sites instead, like download.com. To help keep your computer clean of viruses, download and install one of the many anti-virus programs available. Some good ones are AVG Free Anti-Virus, from grisoft.com and Avast Anti-Virus from avast.com. Both programs are free and will automatically check for new versions of their virus databases so you are protected from existing and new viruses.

Spyware

Spyware is also a common problem that can slow your computer down tremendously and run programs on your computer without you even knowing. Spyware can come from websites, even well known and reputable websites but usually spyware is contained in certain free programs, like games and software that is free due to banner ads or other advertising inside the program. Since spyware can slow down your computer, it's a good idea to download and install at least one program that will protect you from spyware. Two good ones are Spyware Doctor from pctools.com and Ad-Aware SE from lavasoft.de.

Once you have downloaded and installed your anti-virus and spyware protection software, be sure to schedule a full scan of your computer often, at least once a week or more to help keep your computer running fast and smooth.

About the Author:
Lydia Quinn writes for PaidSurvey24.com, a free and comprehensive paid survey directory list. Visit us at: http://www.paidsurvey24.com.
This article was posted on November 21, 2006
Article Source: articlecity

Where To Buy The Best Spam Blocker And Spyware Removal Programs

There are a lot of spyware removal programs on the market. The most obvious place to buy them is the store where you bought your computer. They will sell the best know brands in a boxed CD package. They are usually very good quality systems, but they can be expensive. If you buy them when you get your computer then you may be able to get a good discount, but do not tell them that you are going to buy the computer until you have asked for it.

You might even be able to get it free with you computer if they think that it will help them to make the sale. But even if you have to buy it at full cost it might still be worth it. The main reason for doing this is that they are usually good and you will not have to do any research. If you do not know anything about spyware removal and do not want to do the research then this might be the best thing to buy.

Some of the best systems are available as downloads, but you need to do some research to make sure that you get the best one. There are a lot of good review sites around that have some good reviews that are written by computer writers, that can let you know which are the best value for money and which are the best for getting rid of the spyware on your computer. They can be very good value and they can also be very good at spyware removal. But it is a good idea to make sure that you are getting the best one by reading the reviews.

If you want something cheaper, then there are some free spyware removal systems. Not all if the ones that are advertised being free are actually free. Sometimes they are just free to scan you computer to see what spyware is on it, but you have to pay to remove it. But there are also a few spyware removal systems that are free. You have to be sure that it is a free system and not just free to scan, but there are some very good program around. there are different ways to get spyware removed from you computer and if you do some research then you should get a good one.

About the Author:
Tim Gorman
For more spyware removal programs please visit PC-Security-Guide.info where you will find a wealth of free and helpful information on computer viruses, email security, virus removal tips and the latest spam scams.
Article Submitted On: October 17, 2006
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/

f Secure Internet Security Suite - Antivirus, Antispyware, Anti Spam, Firewall, Parental Controls

f-Secure Internet Security is an "all inclusive" suite of computer security products that offers excellent protection against computer viruses, Trojans, hackers, spyware, phishing attempts, and spam. fSecure Internet Security also includes a good parental control option, which allows parents to block known "bad" websites. Parents can also block access to any other websites they don't want their children to view, and the internet timer can be used to only allow internet use during specific times of day. fSecure claims to have the worlds fastest updates against new internet security threats, and also the most powerful personal firewall. f Secure has one of the best antivirus programs available, ranking number 4 in PC World's "top 10" anti virus products for 2006, just under Bit Defender, McAfee, and Kaspersky antivirus. fSecure antivirus also ranked #3 with TopTenReviews.com, receiving their prestigious "bronze" award.

I've been using fSecure Internet Security for about a month now, and have found it to be very easy to use. The installation is very simple, and a built in "wizard" walks you through configuration of the antivirus, personal firewall, and spyware setup. The ease of installation and setup is great, especially for PC novices who can just "set it and forget it". By default, the parental control software is not turned on, but the simple user interface makes this a simple thing to do if needed.

As with most computer security suites, fSecure "bogs down" your system a bit when the computer is first turned on, making it take a little longer to fully load. Once you're up and running however, you don't even know it's there. I'm running fSecure on a Windows XP computer with 1GB of RAM though. If you are using less than 512 MB of RAM, you will likely notice a serious performance drain when running fSecure or any other computer security suite.

The f Secure Internet Security interface is clean and easy to understand and use, and the initial default view provides all the information you need at a glance. You can quickly see the status of protection from viruses, spyware, firewall, and spam. The fSecure interface also tells you the status of your subscription, and lets you know when it expires. From the f Secure Internet Security control window, you can easily make configuration changes to the antivirus, antispyware, spam control settings, or personal firewall settings. By default, these settings are set to "normal" protection, which provides the recommended level of protection. Your other choices are "high", "off", and "custom", which allows more advanced users to finely tune and control the way fSecure works. The "normal" security settings produce the least amount of drain on system resources while providing excellent protection.

The "custom" setting allows more advanced users to control various aspects of fSecure Internet Security, including how often files are scanned for viruses and spyware, and which files should be scanned. From the custom configuration settings window, you can also control personal firewall rules and services, browser security, the level of spam filtering, and just about any other aspect of fSecure Internet Security.

All in all, I like the fSecure Internet Security Suite and find it to provide excellent protection against viruses, spam, hackers, and spyware. With all internet security suites, usually one of the "bundled" products is exceptionally good, and the others are merely "acceptable". F Secure's antivirus is by far one of the best virus protection products I have used, providing exceptional protection against zero day attacks and rootkits. The personal firewall is also very good, and I feel that my data is safe while protected by fSecure. The parental control software is pretty basic, and doesn't allow configuration for multiple users. If you want the same protection for everyone in your family though, it serves its purpose well. Internet security suites provide an excellent way for users to protect themselves against all the dangers on the internet. For the absolute best protection against viruses, spyware, spam, and hackers, it would be necessary to install the best individual products available.

For example, you might choose f-Secure for antivirus, SpyCop for anti spyware, Sunbelt Kerio for a personal firewall, and BitDefender for anti-spam. This "pick and choose" approach is not recommended for "average" computer users however, because running several different types of security software (and associated subscriptions) can get pretty complex and costly. Computer security suites are an easy, economical way to protect your computer from a host of internet security threats, and are therefore the recommended method of protection. http://goarticles.com/cgi-bin/add.cgi f-Secure is a very good "all in one" product for protection against viruses, spyware, identity theft, intruders, and spam. It costs around $80 for the software and a year's worth of updates. Once you own the software, it costs around $60 for a renewal subscription.

f-Secure Internet Security - Review
Computer Security Suites

About the Author:
Debbie Jacobsen is an information technology professional and author of Antivirus, Firewall, and Spyware Resources, Laptop Security Basics, and Computer Security for Everyone
Submitted: 2006-10-21
Article Source: GoArticles

Spam Is Now Dead Meat.

Other than the canned meat sold by Hormel, the term spam is used to describe unsolicited bulk email. It is rumored that the term Spam came from an old Monty Python comedy sketch about a restaurant where every item on the menu came with an order of Spam. Certainly this is an accurate comparison due to the ubiquitous nature of junk email, which first started to appear in bulk in the early 1990s. The usual definition of spam is email that is unsolicited, without prior permission or business relationship, transmitted in mass mailings and containing commercial content.

As the Internet became used increasingly in homes and businesses, marketers did their best to promote their wares through this new medium. Email, unlike postal mail that requires a separate postage charge, can be sent out in bulk just as cheaply as it can be sent to one person. Therefor, bulk email became an irresistible way to advertise for Internet-based marketers. Their only difficulty was to find valid email addresses for recipients.

Bulk marketers began to compile lists of known email addresses and sell them to other advertisers. Consumers often sign up on mailing lists to be notified of sales or product promotions, even from companies the openly pass their clients' email addresses on to other companies. Spammers get email addresses off publicly available web sites and user groups. Spammers have even been known to hack into businesses' customer databases to harvest even more addresses for their lists.

It did not matter if some of the addresses had expired; if an address is not valid, email is simply not delivered. Millions of simultaneous email messages could be sent out at little or no cost to the marketer, so customer targeting was no longer necessary. Spam was lucrative for marketers, as any response rate at all would bring in profit from this essentially free advertising.

Much of the spam advertised goods and services of dubious quality, such as pornography, get-rich-quick schemes, multilevel marketing, stock promotions, quack health remedies, and of course the services of internet marketers offering to send out even more spam on behalf of the email account holder.

Internet users, however, were less pleased with spam than were internet merchants. Many consumers resented receiving advertisements through what is to be considered a personal electronic mailbox. Finding legitimate emails became a time consuming process of sifting through hundreds of unwanted messages. Furthermore, some of the spam contained viruses. Constant flow of spam used up bandwidth and filled up server space. Parents objected to pornographic pictures being sent to family websites which were accessed by children.

Spam is costly to the business world. It takes up bandwidth and server storage space. Legitimate email may be lost, inboxes fill up and staff spend office time deleting unwanted email. A study published in May 2004 by Radicati Group shows that large businesses (with approximately 10,000 employees) which do not use spam filters lose $2,923.20 per user per year or a total of $30 million annually in terms of email productivity. As Bill Gates said, "The torrent of unwanted, unsolicited, often offensive and sometimes fraudulent email is eroding trust in technology, costing business billions of dollars a year, and decreasing our collective ability to realize technology’s full potential.”

Aside from being an annoying, time-wasting nuisance, spam also includes "phishing" emails, false requests purportedly from companies such as Ebay or Paypal, asking for credit card information.

The total savings for businesses which do install anti-spam filters is approximately $19.9 million per year. (Claburn, 2004). Filtering software looks for tell-tale signs such as an invalid or spoofed "From" address, invalid host name in the “From” or “To” address, similarity to previous emails, direct SMTP transmission from a host without a fixed IP address, receipt of the email from an unrestricted mail server, an IP address, netblock or domain matching that of a known spammer or “spamhaus”, and unique headers created by spamming software.

No matter what kind of anti-spam system you employ in your home or office, from the most basic to the most thorough, it's bound to save you time and money.

About the Author:
J Schipper loves Spam Blockers Accounting Software Business Software Disk Recovery
Content Provider: http://www.my-articles.com

Adware Alerts

Adware is a type of program that is usually attached to freeware and shareware. It is responsible for displaying pop-up or pop-under advertisements on your computer, even if you are not browsing the Internet. Programmers will attach these programs to certain software to offset the cost of its programming. This is also the way they make money from software that they give out for free.

Adware may be a necessary component of the software it is attached to. Removing it can violate the license agreement of the software and prevent it from functioning properly.

You may wonder if adware programs are dangerous. In general, these programs are harmless. However, there are types of adware that can prove dangerous to your system, such as spyware. Spyware can gain access to your private computer information and channel it to third parties, often without your knowledge or consent.

Having an up-to-date anti-adware program is the best way to protect your computer from such malicious programs. It will alert you if your computer contains adware, so you can remove it effectively and without harming your system. It will also remind you to conduct regular virus and adware scans.

Different kinds of adware-removal software are widely available in the market. You can even download free versions over the Internet. All of these are useful in alerting you of the presence of adware. If you run your anti-adware software regularly, you will be able to prevent adware from infecting your computer.

If you do not want to run the risk of getting your computer infected, be careful not to download any freeware or shareware that contains adware. There are websites that offer adware-free software. There are also websites that will warn you of certain programs that contain adware or spyware, so you don’t run them or download them by mistake.

Adware provides detailed information on Adware, Adware Alerts, Adware And Spyware, Adware Filters and more. Adware is affiliated with Best Pop Up Blockers.
visit me at http://www.e-popupblockers.com/

About the Author:
Josh Riverside
Article Source: ArticleWarehouse

Bayesian Spam Filters Explained

In a word Bayesian spam filters are "intelligent". Bayesian spam filters are intelligent in so far as they're capable of comparing two sets of information and acting on the result. This is in direct contrast to the vast majority of other spam filters who use pre-built rules to decide which email is spam and which is not.

Bayesian spam filters can take one group of legitimate email and another group of spam and compare the values and data of each. The definition of legitimate email that it creates at the end of this comparison session is what it uses going forward to scan your inbox for spam.

FYI Bayesian spam filters are named after Thomas Bayes an 18 century cleric who created something known as Bayes Theorem. In summary Bayes Theorem is as follows: .."in statistical inference to update estimates of the probability that different hypotheses are true, based on observations and a knowledge of how likely those observations are, given each hypothesis." In plain English it looks for obvious repeating patterns to form an "opinion" on something. In spam filter terms that "opinion" becomes a rule which keeps you spam free (or pretty close.)

The really neat thing about Bayesian filters is that they're capable of learning. For example if they decided to block an email because the filter perceived it as junk but the user marked it as valid mail the Bayesian filter then knows not to block that type of email in the future. So, in time, this type of spam filter learns enough to block spam far more effectively. AOL have embraced this type of spam filter with the launch of AOL 9.0 and AOL Communicator- if the big dog wants it then it must be worthwhile.

So what Bayesian spam filtering options are available to you? Well quite a few to be honest and you'll be pleasantly surprised by some of the names involved :-) The first one on the list is AOL with their AOL Communicator product. The spam filtering features in AOL Communicator and AOL 9 are, to be honest, impressive. Think what you will of the provider themselves AOL Communicator is an excellent product and is suitable for use by both PC and Mac OSX users.

Next up we have Eudora. The nice folks at Qualcomm have designed an excellent email client that also has built in Bayesian spam filtering. I've used Eudora in the past and it's a neat little package. Again the benefits here are advanced integrated spam filtering with your e-mail automatically. Mac OSX and OS9 users are in luck with Eudora providing support for both.

Bayesian spam filters are providing a more rounded defense for computer users of all levels in fighting spam. As an indication of the strength of Bayesian spam filters more and more companies are either:
a. Updating their spam filters to include bayesian technique as a plugin or;
b. Basing their new products on bayesian filtering principles from the ground up.

About the author:
Niall Roche
This article was provided courtesy of Spam-Site.com which reviews and tests spam blockers for the business and end user.
Circulated by Article Emporium

Are You A Spam Zombie?

Over the past few years you've all become familiar with the terms spam, spam filter, whitelists, blacklists and a whole myriad of other terminology associated with the problem of spam. You now have to add a new and extremely worrying phrase to that list - spam zombie.

With the net closing in around them spammers are looking for new and more inventive ways to send out their junk email. Spam filters and challenge response systems are becoming progressively more intelligent and blocking more spam each day. What was a spammer to do? The spammers took the next step - infiltrating your PC and using it as a spamming tool.

When most of you think of the word zombie you're reminded of old B movies with groaning zombies chasing the terrified actress through a castle, swamp or whatever low cost setting the movie revolved around. Spam zombies are, however, far more real and far more dangerous.

A spam zombie is when your computer is taken over by a type of virus called a Trojan. Once this Trojan virus is on your computer it sets up an SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) application which allows it to begin sending email directly from your PC to tens of thousands of victims. This all happens invisibly in the background and can be difficult to detect for even the experienced computer user.

How do these Trojans get onto your computer? As in most cases they come from porn, warez or similar sites. One of the first spam zombie trojans to appear became available via a link on sites promising viewers free access to a porno webcam. One click later and the Trojan is installed on your computer ready to send out spam. Phatbot and Proxy-Guzu are two of the more common Trojans used for the purpose of turning your computer into a spam zombie.

How can you check if your computer has become a spam zombie? Make absolutely certain that both your anti-virus and firewall software have current detection signatures and have been completely patched and updated. Working online without taking these necessary security precautions is simply asking for trouble.

Internet Service Providers are under huge pressure to quarantine the IP address of any computer which has been turned into a spam zombie. This is done on the basis that the ISP risks their entire IP range being blacklisted or banned by some spam filtering services or companies.

The very least you owe yourself is to run a full virus and spyware scan on your computer today. You might be unpleasantly surprised at what you'll find lurking there.

About the author:
Niall Roche
This article was provided courtesy of Spam-site.com which reviews spam blocking software and other anti spam utilties.
Circulated by Article Emporium

Evict the Spammers from Your Inbox

Block Spam and Other Email Threats From Entering Your Gateway
Spam, commonly defined as unsolicited commercial email, is a powerful advertising channel for many products and services. As a result, spamming has become a profitable business, driven by the low cost of sending email compared to other direct marketing techniques. The high return on investment for spammers has resulted in an overwhelming volume of unwanted messages in personal and business email boxes. Consider this: Conducting a direct mail campaign costs an average of $1.39 per person, meaning that a response rate of 1 in 14 is necessary just to break even on a product with a $20 gross profit. Selling the same item via unsolicited spam email costs only $0.0004 per person, meaning that a response rate of 1 in 50,000 gets the seller back to break-even; anything above that is gravy. With profit margins like these, it’s easy to see why spammers will try anything to get past anti spam technology to deliver their messages to your inbox.

Types of Spam Threats
The recent onset of fraudulent spam variants such as phishing and spoofing pose an even greater risk than the spam volume clogging email servers. Spammers use techniques such as phishing and spoofing to fool users into opening messages that, at first glance, appear innocuous.

Phishing
Phishing is a specific type of spam message that solicits personal information from the recipient. Phishers use social engineering techniques to fool end users into believing that the message originated from a trusted sender, making these attacks especially dangerous because they often con victims into divulging social security numbers, bank account information or credit card numbers. In one six-month period from November 2003 to May 2004, phishing attacks increased in frequency by 4000%, and the trend continues upward.

An example of phishing is an email that appears to come from a bank requesting that users log into their account to update or correct personal information. When the users follow a link embedded in the email, they are redirected to a site that looks and behaves like the expected bank website. However, unbeknownst to the soon-to-be identity theft victims, the site is actually controlled by the scam artists who sent the email; any and all information entered by the victim can now be used in a variety of ways, none of them good.

Spoofing
Spoofing is a deceptive form of spam that hides the domain of the spammer or the spam’s origination point. Spammers often hijack the domains of well-known businesses or government entities to make spam filters think the communication is coming from a legitimate source.

Today’s spammers are more crafty than ever before and have begun blending elements of both phishing and spoofing into their messages, further spinning their web of deception. The toxic combination of spoofing and phishing presents a major threat that can trick most anyone into providing personal information to a stranger.

Toothless Legislation
On January 1, 2004, President Bush signed into law the “Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003,” or “CAN-SPAM” Act. While well intentioned, CAN-SPAM has done little or nothing to curb the flow of unwanted email. In fact, an estimated 97% of all spam email sent in 2004 violated the Act, and the United States still dwarfs other nations in terms of the origin of spam, with CipherTrust research revealing that an astonishing 56.77% of all spam comes from U.S.-based IP addresses. While CAN-SPAM was designed to decrease the overall volume of spam, the exact opposite has happened: in 2004, spam accounted for approximately 77% of all email traffic, and phishing attacks continue to increase exponentially, with studies showing an increase of 4000% from November 2003 to May 2004.

Anti Spam Software for the Desktop
The dramatic increase in spam volume has prompted a corresponding surge in stand-alone anti spam software solutions for the desktop, all with varying levels of effectiveness. Some anti spam software uses text filtering to screen incoming messages for known characteristics of spam, while other solutions rely solely on reputation systems that monitor and categorize email senders by IP address according to their sending behavior. Still other anti spam software uses “challenge/response filters” to block unapproved mail until the sender responds (manually) to a challenge email sent to their email account to verify his or her identity.

With so many different methods of filtering spam, no single software-based desktop anti spam solution is capable of effectively stopping spam before it reaches the inbox. The only way to successfully fight spam is to create an anti spam “cocktail” including reputation services, text filters, constant updates and a host of other best-of-breed spam blocking methods. Just as importantly, an effective anti spam solution should reside at the email gateway, not at the desktop. Without protection at the gateway, mail servers waste massive amounts of bandwidth and storage space processing every message, wanted or not, and end users face the unenviable task of deciding what to do with the countless spam messages that successfully reach them.

Take a Consolidated Approach to Anti Spam
Although it takes a person only a moment to process a message and identify it as spam, it is difficult to automate that human process because no single message characteristic consistently identifies spam. In fact, there are hundreds of different message characteristics that may indicate an email is spam, and an effective anti spam solution must be capable of employing multiple spam detection techniques.

In addition to effectively identifying spam, businesses must be assured that legitimate mail is not blocked in error. Even one false positive, or incorrectly blocked email, can have a significant impact on businesses today. Accurate spam blocking requires a combination of tools to examine various message criteria combined with real-time research and intelligence data.

By aggregating multiple spam detection technologies like text filtering, reputation services, traffic analysis and other best-of-breed techniques, and placing the solution at the email gateway in a hardened appliance, enterprises can retake control of the inbox.

About the author:
Paul Judge, CTO, CipherTrust, Inc. is a noted scholar and entrepreneur. He is Chief Technology Officer at CipherTrust, the industry's largest provider of enterprise email security. The company’s flagship product, IronMail provides a best of breed enterprise anti spam solution designed to stop spam, phishing attacks and other email-based threats. Learn more by visiting www.ciphertrust.com/products/spam_and_fraud_protection today.
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Take back control of your inbox. Eliminate annoying and potentially harmful e-mails

Are you tired of spam stealing your time, your money, your bandwidth and your hard disc space?

The time you devote each day to sort and delete spam from your inbox could be put to much better use. In the European Union alone, the working hours employees are spending on sorting and deleting spam is costing the companies and estimated 10 billion euros every year! By manually sorting out spam after it has reached your inbox you are loosing time and money, as well as bandwidth and space. You are also putting your computer at risk by allowing possibly hazardous content to enter your server. Supportcave.com offers free intelligent Spam Blockers, helping computer users to protect their computers as well as reclaiming their time, money, bandwidth and space from the spammers.

Every day - 365 days a year - more than 10 billion spam e-mails are sent out to e-mail users all over the world. Despite new laws and verdicts trying to strike down on the spammers, the number of spam e-mails are expected to rise to 30 billion a day by the end of 2005. Today spam constitutes 37% of all e-mail traffic in the U.S.

Spam is not only annoying, it's dangerous and it is causing financial losses for companies as well as individuals. For example, an estimated 10 billion euros are spent every year by companies in the European Union to deal with spam. Spam is sent out by fraudulent companies and individuals and can often be infected with viruses, spy programs or other undesired software. Studies show that 95% of all computer viruses are sent through e-mail. Even virus free spam causes problems since it consumes the users' time as well as hard disc space. Spam is however not only shunned by the users, the Internet Service Providers abhor it as well since it chews up a lot of bandwidth and disc space, and the non-stop sending of e-mails uses a lot of system resources and stresses the e-mail servers. This leads to a less effective Internet and increased costs for everyone.

The best way to protect your self from spam and battle the spammers is to use a Spam Blocker. The most basic forms of Spam Blockers are software programs periodically checking your e-mail for the best known types of spam and remove them, or filter them into a special folder for you to remove. There are however much more sophisticated Anti Spam programs on the market. The Webroot Spam Shredder is a Spam Filtering Software that lets you to remove spam e-mails from the mail server without ever pulling them down into your inbox. This means heavily increased security for your computer and your network and is the most efficient and effortless way of controlling your incoming e-mails. You will be given the opportunity to accept or delete suspected e-mails while they are still on the server. You can also choose to quarantine them for later review.

The Webroot Spam Shredder is equipped with a smart learning engine, which studies your decisions to keep or delete spam. The longer you use the Webroot Spam Shredder, the more effectively the program will sort your incoming e-mail. The Webroot Spam Shredder Whitelist and the Webroot Spam Shredder Blacklist features let you identify e-mails that should be immediately delivered or instantly deleted. If you use Outlook, Outlook Express or Eudora for your e-mail, you can effortlessly import your contact list into your Whitelist. When friends, family, colleagues etcetera send you e-mail those letters while be instantly delivered to you inbox and you won't have to make any decisions regarding them.

The Webroot Spam Shredder database is a frequently updated to protect you from the latest known spam. You can choose your desired level of protection and the type of messages to scan with the Spam Shredder.

Are you tired of spam stealing your time, bandwidth and hard disc space? Applying the Webroot Spam Shredder allows you to determine up to 99.9% of the spam e-mails. Install the Webroot Spam Shredder today and start safeguarding your time as well as your money from the fraudulent spam senders!

About the author:
Jason Frovich
Supportcave.com offers new and enhanced Spam Blocker Software. Not only will these programs effectively check and clean your email from spam, once installed it identifies and diverts spam before it reaches your inbox.
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