I was informed that there may be a computer virus making the rounds, specifically sent to domain owners. The virus has been sent from different email addresses, but the subject of the emails was “Buy Domains.” The emails contained an attachment called “DomainsE.doc.exe.” and that has an executable virus that may be harmful to your computer.
Although social networking has made it even easier for people to communicate and has made people less likely to question a random targeted email, we need to be cautious with threats like these. Make sure you keep your virus checking software updated, and run the software to check your computer as often as possible.
I get a lot of random emails and can be complacent sometimes, but I hope this warning is helpful. If a domain theft happens over the holidays, it can take a good amount of time to get in touch with the right tech support and legal staff to recover them, and you don’t want this to ruin your holiday. Losing your domain names can be a malicious keylogging software installation away, so be careful when you receive emails (even targeted ones) from people you don’t know.
Photo credit:Don Hankins: http://www.flickr.com/photos/23905174@N00/ / CC BY 2.0
Another reason to use a Mac.
Or…Linux ๐
Anyway, even if you decide on NOT changing your computer’s operating system platform, for whatever reason:
a) Use common sense.
b) Never open attachments from emails (specially if they are .exe files or executables).
c) Do not ever click on a link from the email body. It is preferable for you to retype the stuff on the browser. Of course, you better be knowing where you will be going to with your browser.
f) Have your anti-virus, spam filter, malware filters up and running and updated to the latests virus,phishing (malware) , etc. signatures.
e) Use common sense (yes, again! ).
Merry Xmas to all and a happy and successful 2010 !
Felipe Barousse
http://www.piensa.com