Why your computer is at risk
By Gordon Powers, Sympatico / MSN Finance
Hmmm, no emails today about fake Rolexes or nonexistent bank accounts that need checking. What am I going to do?
Spam levels dropped sharply after rogue hosting firm McColo was shut down by its upstream ISPs late last year. But two months later, its replacements are once again churning out even more messages from hell.
According to the newest statistics from MessageLabs, roughly 75% of all email thus far this month has been spam, an increase of close to 5 percentage points over the December level. While you wait for yet another bogus PayPal notice, here’s McAfee’s take on what’s on the horizon.
Of course, we bring all this on ourselves. After two decades of warning about the perils of social engineering – the methods hackers use to trick people into revealing passwords or allowing access to computer systems – a recent Cisco study suggests that little progress has been made when it comes to protecting our computers.
If anything, people are even more lax about security than they were a few years ago, the survey found. And even when companies have security policies, Cisco’s research reveals that employees frequently defy or ignore them.
The worst offenders? Those who troll unauthorized web sites or add applications they like to use at home. Here’s the top 10 list.
Posted by: Ron | Jun 20, 2021 10:26:47 PM
This must be a spam message for McAfee. I have been using the internet since the dawn of the internet and never had an issue with spam, spyware, viruses or any other crap. If you understand anything about your computer, you'll recognize unwanted crap before you ever get it onto your pc. I don't use antivirus software or anti whatever software, because those are the main spam creators. Look at it this way. If I offered you an antivirus program and told you that your first scan was free. Would you buy it? Most likely I think. But now that I as a person (developer) have your pc's information I can sell you the antivirus at a cheap price and sell your personal info for alot more profits. Oh yes...and please do keep the (share information to help us make your antivirus program better) checked. I will need that for further profit in case you move and your IP address changes.