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Fake email malware

This threat is an email that looks real, may even be real, but you get infected.

Today a customer went to her online email and opened one from Barnes and Noble. After that, she could not get on the internet (everything else seemed OK). So at lunch, she went to a co-workers PC and checked her email - again she opened the Barnes and Noble and now that computer could not get on the internet, could not access their in house network and suddenly had rogue antispyware informing of all these infections (this version actually looked like it was Windows informing you of the infection and asking if you wanted to scan).

What Happened?

Either the email was "spoofed" - pretended to be sent from Barnes and Noble or it may have been real and if she went to their site they MAY have had an advertisement that was infected.

Regardless, her computer had not had any sort of update done on it for quite some time - after the infection was removed, Windows was updated and there were 53 updates needed on one PC and 80 needed on the other. Also - Adobe Flash, java and their Acrobat readers needed important updates.

Solution:

3.5 hours later, both computers are fixed and up to date.

While having your computer up to date on all of it's updates will not guarantee a malware free existence, it will make it way more difficult for them to get in.

Here are the DIY recommended monthly updates (these are all done for you on the monthly PM plan)

Related resources

• F-secure Blog
  The Anti-Virus company F-Secure has a great blog about the latest threats.
  It is monitored every day!.