Quote:
Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
Perhaps it's merely a ruse . . .
but has anyone else been warned by their employer that a security hole in Internet Explorer is being exploited by hackers to obtain credit card and other financial information when one does any online shopping?
Guess it means more posting, less shopping for me.
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If not true, it is certainly a truism - every torjan horse, virus and keylogger attack takes advantage of one security hole or another in either Windows or Internet Explorer.
But more problematically, there has been a relatively new virus that inserts itself into a message that warns the user of a new Microsoft exploit and appears to come from the IT department of the recipient (it takes information from the @ section of the e-mail address, so if your e-mail is
mburger@lawtalkers.com, it will make the top of the message say "An important message from your Lawtalkers security team." Sometimes this makes sense, sometimes it doesn't, but it's remarkably effective on average.)
To protect oneself, one should do several things in general:
- Access the Internet from behind a firewall.
- Keep anti-virus software up-to-date. Best option is one that automatically updates itself whenever a new version is available. This is the best $50 a year a netizen can spend.
- Check Microsoft.com for updates
daily. This takes about a minute once you've bookmarked the page.
- Always be suspicious of any e-mail that claims to come from a financial institution that askes you to open an attachment or provides a link to log-in. Log in by going to the web page the normal way (typing in the URL / favorites). While any e-mail from any bank, brokerage, etc. is suspicious, Paypal, Citibank and US Bank are especially suspect.
Is it obvious that I've been spending way too much time on this shit lately?
