Julie's Web Journal

Wow. Yesterday was quiet on the e-mail front. This morning I found a ton of spam in my inbox. All but one piece of e-mail had been caught by the filter and segretated to the junk folder. Still, I had to check the subject lines and the senders just to make sure there weren't any false positives. Most subject lines suggested ways I could impress my girlfriend.

Uh, yeah. Right.

I don't think the spammers actually took the day off. I suspect today's influx comes courtesy of people with unpatched computers clicking on every "Christmas funny" e-mail that landed in their inbox. People download warez and then are stunned - stunned, I tell you - when every virus on the planet gets loaded onto their system.

How do I know this? Part of the job I did for the client that just let me go was answering tech support queries. Yeah, I'm a masochist, aren't I? ;-) I was shocked at the audacity of some people: They'd admit that they downloaded a cracked program and had inadequate (read "no") antivirus protection, then demand that we help them out of their situation. Honestly, my first impulse was to tell them they were on their own, but systems in that state are responsible for a good chunk of the spam you get in your inbox. Along with all the viruses, they'll get infected by one or more programs that spew out masses of spam e-mails.

Thankfully, there were few of those. Most were people who opened an attachment they shouldn't have. If I was able to determine the virus they'd been hit with, I'd send them the link to a removal tool or to a site that would scan their system and identify the malware. In both cases I took the time to educate about safe computing.

So whatever operating system you use, please take the time to install and use anti-virus software and practice safe computing. No, a Mac or Linux system is not invulnerable. It's also possible for a Mac or Linux user to pass an infected attachment along to someone else. I suppose it's possible to send a Mac virus via a PC in an infected attachement as well. We all owe it to our friends and associates to do this. It may be one of the best gifts you can give this season.

Tags:  Technology, Spam