Thursday afternoon I was looking at Outlook Express and saw that I had received an e-mail saying it was from PayPal. From the window thingy that allows you to see part of the e-mail before you actually open it I could see that it was a bill for over 600 dollars for a sex object. Well, (a) I would not buy any such thing; (b) I certainly would not have spent such a sum of money for anything; (c) the most I have spent with payPal was £4.00 for a couple of paperbacks from Ebay; and (d) the last sum I spent through PayPal was for 79 pence for a piece of music fromiTunes. I assumed that it was a con so I clicked on the e-mail ready to Forward it to PayPal at spoof@paypal.com . All Hell went loose. A website I had never clicked on a link for suddenly appeared, weird messages began to appear and my Anti-Virus package began to send me lots of messages, first to say that they had detected a significant Virus (one of the Trojans, I think), then that they advised putting it in Quarantine, then that they advised Deleting it. Finally that seemed to sort the problem out, I did a full system scan and the AntiVirus software didn't fnd anything horrible.
However, if I hadn't got an excellent Anti Virus software my computer would now be a mass of unusable metal and plastic. The thing is that all computer owners need much more than the hardware. They also need several different software packages to protect the thing. I have three. A very good quality Internet Security package with a firewall and anti-spam and two other freeware software packages that the Stepson found on the internet and installed on my computer which deals with all the spyware, cookies, etc that sneaks into the computer whenever I am "out there" on the Internet. So, every week, in addition to vacuuming and dusting the house I also do the computer Housekeeping which comprises updating all three software packages I have just described, running a full scan of the computer by all three of them and then asking the computer if it needs a defrag. All tiresome and takes a while but absolutely necessary if the computer is to keep going. I always consider all this little lot a bit like checking the air in the tires and checking the oil level in the car.
But... why do we have to have computer viruses anyway? I can understand (albeit reluctantly) that if a firm is capable of checking where else a computer is going to visit then it would issue spyware to sneak into an individual computer's sofware. I can also understand that if Microsoft announces that its software security is invincible that the announcement is like a red rag to a bull and people will try to break the security systems. But what value would anyone have in infecting an individual's computer? There is no monetary gain involved and neither would the virus creator even be aware of the fury and exasperation felt by the individual whose computer has been infected. So, what does the creator of computer viruses gain from what they have done?
3 comments:
Thank goodness you came through that calamity in good shape! I, too, received an email, purportedly from PayPal; but, I shall never know what it said or what would have happened had I opened it. I peeked at it through the spamblocker and the first sentence, saying something about the "annual update of...." was enough to convince me that the email was phony. I hit "delete", rapidly.
Cop Car
Cop Car, the worrying thing about all this was that all I had done was to click on the e-mail to Forward it. That's when the trouble startd! Still it is over now and all's well.
I have forwarded obvious scam emails to our authorities (send me $10,000 and I'll share my millions with you when I get out of Zymthobam); but, I've not tried forwarding a phishing email.
Perhaps the mailbox function must "open" an email to forward it? If so, that's all it takes! I read (somewhere) that there are ways for malicious emails to do bad things if one just "previews" them--let alone "opening" them. I guess you are fortunate that you were well-equipped to, eventually, subdue the darned thing. Good show!
Cop Car
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