We got a call today from a panicked customer today.  He said, "Microsoft called me today and I gave them access to my office computer and my home computer...." 

 

No, Microsoft didn't call you.  I wrote about this in May and it's still true in December.

A neighbor and client was just in my office to tell me that Microsoft called her yesterday. I cringed.

She told me about how quickly the man spoke, how many technical terms he bandied about, how knowledgeable he seemed, and how he even transferred her to a supervisor.

It's an easy trap to fall into.  Using your work email address for personal correspondence is wrong, though.  Just as you wouldn't mix your business banking with your personal banking, you should take care to keep your personal and your business emails separate.

There's no such thing as a free lunch.   And, there's no such thing as truly free freeware.  You may not pay the author of the freeware, but you could be paying for it in other ways.  While there are some great freeware programs, there's often a catch when it comes to downloading or installing or updating.

I got a fraudulent email pretending to be from PayPal today.  Upon reading it, it was pretty clear to me that was spam - the punctuation, the grammar, the lack of personalization and that it was sent to a non-existent email account all added up to one thing:  SPAM!  I've pasted a copy of the email at the end of this post so you can see for yourself!

Upon Googling "PayPal" and "phishing" I found myself on PayPal's site and this neat little quiz.

I understand if getting an email that has any reference to taxes makes your heart stop, it's the easiest way to get my attention, that's for sure!  But, really, would a tax authority send you a notice via email?  Take a moment to look at the email below and see if you can pick out the red flags.

If your company uses a phone system that emails voice mail messages or faxes, be wary of emails that look legitimate but actually contain malware or links to infected sites.  Remember, you are your own best defense when it comes to protecting your computer, your company and yourself from malware and viruses.

I found this email in my spam filter this afternoon.  (Thanks, SmarterMail!).   It's another attempt to take advantage of the fact that people are busy.  We're bombarded by incoming email - from customers, coworkers, vendors - and sometimes, we forget to think before we click.

I found this in my spam filter yesterday.  It purports to be from the payroll company, ADP.  It was easy for me to spot it as SPAM, since we don't use ADP for payroll processing.  But even that weren't the case, that there's a .zip file attached to this email would have raised a red-flag.