This is a common situation these days. Malicious code has been developed to allow spammers to distribute their junk mail a variety of ways.
In the old days, we’d tell people just to be careful about posting their email addresses on web sites or newsgroups. Today, all it takes is an infected machine on which your email address is saved in an address book!
In order to combat spam, it’s now important for all computer users to keep their machines secured using the latest security software and by making sure operating system updates are done. Sometimes even this is not enough, since modern coders can defeat most commercially available Internet Security applications. Why can’t they use their powers for good instead of evil?
Be careful about designating email addresses or domains as trusted. Many spam filters, including our own, allow users to whitelist specific email addresses or entire domains. Imagine what could happen if you whitelisted the entire hotmail.com domain? That means anyone sending you a message with a return address from hotmail.com is going to get past the spam filter. Unfortunately, you can no longer whitelist your OWN email address! Spammers are sending junk mail to you with your own return address!
What’s a person to do? Make sure your security software is up to date. If you haven’t installed anything, please call ConnectNC to have a tech perform a security scan on your system and install your software. If everyone maintained good system security, we’d go a long way towards eliminating spam that comes from infected machines.
Last, but not least, never, ever buy from a spammer. They’re not sending you junk mail for fun. They’re doing it to make money. About ten years ago, one spammer told me that his employer made $30,000 in one day after they sent out unsolicited commercial email to a very large number of addresses. Their hosting and email accounts were cancelled, but it was well worth it to them. So, let’s try to make spamming an unprofitable venture. We should all agree that we’ll never buy anything that was promoted in an unsolicited message we received.
AOL has something they call an Email Feedback Report. ISPs can register with AOL so they’ll be notified any time an email message is reported as spam. Unfortunately for the sender, the entire contents of the message are left intact for the ISP to review. The Email Feedback Report protects the identity of the recipient, but not the sender. Therefore, any message reported to AOL as spam (either rightly or wrongly) gets sent to the sender’s ISP.
What does this potentially mean? It means that a sender’s love notes, racist or sexist jokes and personal and business information are revealed to the sender’s ISP if that message is reported as spam.
We try to inform our customers when a message has been returned to us by AOL. In MOST of the cases, the sender reports back that the recipient did NOT (either intentionally or accidentally) mark their message as spam. Therefore, we’re making the assumption that there’s some flaw in AOL’s mail system that tags messages as spam in error.
Because we see several of these a week, my own personal policy is to never send anything I would want to have kept confidential to people with AOL email addresses.
I just wanted to pass this along so people will be aware and take steps to maintain their privacy.
There’s been a recent influx of phishing attempts against our subscribers. If you receive a message like the one below, please delete it immediately! We will NEVER send any such messages to our subscribers. In addition, please do not ever send your login and password to ANYONE, including us. We will not request it by email.
Please call our tech support number any time if you have any questions or have received any suspicious email.
Tech Support: 866-234-4883 – 24 hours a day
ConnectNC, Inc. 420 SW Broad St Southern Pines, NC 28387 910-695-7068
Go to our home page to login to webmail
-----Original Message----- From: Information From PINEHURST.NET Webmail TEAM [mailto:info_managementcenter@pinehurst.net] Sent: Tuesday, July 15, 2008 9:07 PM To: undisclosed-recipients: Subject: Comfirm Your PINEHURST.NET Webmail Account !!! Dear PINEHURST.NET Webmail Account Owner, This message is from PINEHURST.NET messaging center to all PINEHURST.NET email account owners On Wednesday, July 16th, 2008, from 11:35 AM until 7:35 PM, all Mailhub systems will undergo regularly schPINEHURST.NETled maintenance in PINEHURST.NET Access to your e-mail via the Webmail client will be unavailable for some time during this maintenance window. We are currently upgrading our data base and e-mail account center - see homepage. We are, deleting all PINEHURST.NET email account to create more space for new accounts. To complete your PINEHURST.NET Webmail account, you must reply to this email immediately and enter your CORRECT PASSWORD here (*********) immediately for upgrading, Failure to do this will immediately your Email address here(***************************) deactivated from our database. Once we have updated your account current records will be sent your Online Account and your service will not be interrupted and will continue working as normal. Your Email Address Here ************* Correct Password Here ********* Date of Birth *********** Final Notification, Please Protect Your PINEHURST.NET Webmail From Being Closed. To provide easy access to all your account administration functions, we have moved these functions to easy Webmail at http://webmail.pinehurst.net you can also confirm your email address by logging into your webmail account. Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience. Thank you for using PINEHURST.NET! The PINEHURST.NET Webmail TEAM" No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com Version: 8.0.138 / Virus Database: 270.4.11/1554 - Release Date: 7/15/2008 6:03 PM
There are individuals who may send email to you, asking for your account password, or asking you to login to a web site to change your password. These people are posing as technical support people in an attempt to get your account password from you. Once they have your account password, they login to webmail and use your address to send out thousands of “spam” messages across the Internet.
There are a few steps you can take to make sure your account isn’t “hijacked” to use for spamming (sending junk email). First, and most important, never give your password to anyone who is requesting it by email. Don’t login to any web site to change your password or enter your current password on the request of anyone by email. If we feel your account has been compromised we’ll change your password for you. We’ll never email to ask you to do it.
You can read more about this kind of activity, called “phishing,” by going to the following URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phishing
Second, please make sure your password is strong enough to prevent someone from guessing it. If your username and password are the same, you’re a potential target for account hijacking. Your password should contain upper and lower case letters, numbers and some other character(s), such as symbols or punctuation. Here are a few examples of good and bad passwords.
GOOD passwords ————– M9ADu%3wQ! (good) NtiL@e_D5o1sig (even better – more characters)
BAD passwords ————- 1234 (one of the most commonly used and easily guessed passwords) spaniel (a word in the dictionary)
Please check your password here: http://tinyurl.com/safe-passwords If your password strength is not rated “strong” or “best,” it should be changed immediately!
If you have ANY reason to believe that someone has guessed your password, please change it immediately.
Your ConnectNC Account Manager: https://accounts.connectnc.net/
I recently received a Hallmark greeting card from a “friend” in my email in box. The message was NOT, however, a greeting card from a friend. It was an attempted attack on my machine. Since I use a Mac, I didn’t have to worry about this particular trojan. The evildoers who propagated this trojan want you to install zapchast on your Windows computer by clicking on their link and use it to do bad deeds. More information can be found here >> http://www.microsoft.com/security/portal/SearchResults.aspx?query=zapchast
What can you do to protect yourself? First of all, install a reputable security application on your PC, from a company such as Symantec or McAfee and KEEP IT UPDATED! We can do this for you as part of our Virtual IT service. I don’t open anything with attachments from people I don’t know, or anything that I haven’t asked for or know about in advance, really. In fact, I don’t open greeting cards and those types of things ever, since I have an aversion to animated stuff with what I consider to be unpleasant music. I still send greeting cards via snail mail.
If you have Internet or network security needs, please give our office a call and schedule an appointment. Call (910) 695-7068, ext. 10. Be careful out there!
When analyzing how much of the email that comes into web hosting accounts, we discovered that it’s 94% spam and viruses. Thanks to our mail filtering device, most of that is blocked or quarantined. I went to google to look for stats, and found that our figure agrees with what’s reported by most other ISPs. A graph from one of our mail filters shows the severity of the spam problem, which is universal.
Increases in junk mail has required us to invest in mail filtering appliances and software, which is the case for many large companies and universities. However, not all companies can afford to make this investment. We offer mail filtering for web sites whether they are hosted with us or not. For a low monthly rate, your domain’s email can be protected. Pricing starts at $13.50 per month, for up to 10 mail accounts.
Using the service is easy. A simple change is made to your DNS. No software needs to be installed on any of your systems. We do still recommend that each of your machines has an anti-virus application installed. While most viruses are email borne, there are still risks associated with simply being connected to the Internet.
For more information, or to sign up, call us at 888-290-4601, extension 22.
At our company, where customer service and doing it right the first time is our foundation, web hosting in North Carolina means your business can rest assured its web site is hosted with care and passion. We’re not Godaddy. We’re not Network Solutions. We’re not Dreamhost. We’re not BlueHost or any of the web hosting companies that are only $1.99 per month. We don’t even try to be, because we offer quality and not quantity as our way of business. Although we are proud to have a lot of customers with web hosting in North Carolina, we also host sites for individuals and businesses in Ohio, California, Arizona, Europe, Canada, Indiana, and several other of the United States.
Whether you call and talk to Torri, Monica, Jackie, Ashley, Kevin, Rick, Lane, or our 24/7 technical support team, you are talking to people who care about you. We care about your web site uptime, whether you can login or read your Webalizer web stats. We offer one on one training on how to interpret web stats such as Webalizer, in addition to offer consulting with ideas on improvements to help increase traffic and actions on your web site.
Our web hosting is mainly on Linux servers, as those stay more secure than Windows. We do offere Ensim Windows Hosting as an alternative. Another good platform is Plesk that we can offer. For the customer, it’s usually the hosted mail that is the most crucial to everyday life.
We also offer web design in North Carolina and throughout the United States. If interested please contact us for a custom quote. We have no high pressure sales
Please see our testimonials as a source of proof that we go beyond what customers’ expectations are
http://dsl.pinehurst.net is information about DSL specials we have, important FAQs about having DSL and wireless networking and more. We hope you will find it useful when troubleshooting computer issues, and help you find resources to go when you need computer support in Southern Pines, Pinehurst, and surrounding Sandhills. You can find other computer and offsite backup information at www.connectnc.com and www.pinehurst.net .
This is all too common of a phone call for us here at ConnectNC, Inc. It’s such a sad call to receive, when you hear that coming from a crying customer who didn’t back up their computer Computer Backups are So important. We are asked all too often how to restore lost files and our first question is “Where is your backup?”. Most of the time it was something backed up to a CD months ago, or it was “I meant to back it up last week but forgot”.
With ConnectNC’s free offsite backup service trial, you have nothing to lose. If you try it for 30 days and like it, then just simply continue to use it. If you decide to opt out then just let us know so we don’t charge your card. Please email backups@webgnostics.com for a free trial today. We have personal service and will be there for you in your time of need.
In general, we have residential customers using it for their personal files such as pictures, Quicken files, other databases and documents. We have also small to medium businesses using it for their offsite backup of SQL server databases, Access databases, Excel spreadsheets, Documents and more.
The best thing about this offsite backup service is that it is HIPAA compliant remote backup. It is also something that you easily configure using a point and click, setup your schedule so it automatically backups up your data and you don’t have to remember!
Please contact us today for a free trial. You will not regret it! It works on Microsoft Windows currently. For Mac users, we’re working on a solution so please stay tuned.
Thank you for reading ConnectNC’s blog, here to provide you with the most useful information.
Did you know that ConnectNC offers computer repair services? It’s a natural extension of our business as an Internet Service Provider. After we started offering service in early summer of 1996, customers began to ask us to troubleshoot and fix computer problems. We’ve been helping the good people of Moore, Montgomery and other locations ever since.
If you need an upgrade, software installation, virus removal or just a check up, give us a call. You can bring your computer into our office at 420 SW Broad Street in Southern Pines, or we’ll come to your home or office. If it’s a new computer you’re looking for, we’re an authorized Dell reseller. Your new computer will be delivered to your home and set up, so all you have to do it start using it.
If you have a simple problem, and you’re connected to the Internet, it doesn’t matter where you are! We offer remote assistance, too.
Computer repair and other services can be arranged by calling (910) 695-7068, ext 22.
As you know I have been a client of Connect NC for over 10 years and might I add I would not change that despite the fact I moved to Charlotte 2 years ago. There are many reasons for this; the always friendly efficient staff, service and of course your expert trouble shooting to list a few. While I am sure there may be someone in this great metropolis that could fix my “old slow computer” I just feel nobody does it better than you. Worth the 2 hour drive is what I say! Gayle S.
