A bit more UPS

[Ken Herrick]

If you get one of these, delete immediately Over the weekend I received an E-mail claiming to be notification of a parcel coming via UPS. Strange - I had nothing on order so it seemed a bit odd.I'll paste the text in case any of you get one like it.

Dear customer.

The parcel was sent your home address.
And it will arrive within 7 business day.

More information and the tracking number are attached in document below.

Thank you.
© 1994-2011 United Parcel Service of America, Inc.


It has a "notification letter" as an attachment in zip format. It is malware - do not open it!!!!!!!!!!!

THIS IS NOT GENUINE UPS. I GOT CONFIRMATION FROM UPS ABOUT THIS BEING FAKE WITHIN 5 MINUTES OF NOTIFYING THEM.

Ref the other, current UPS thread, if a shipper shows such scant regard for the value of something as to "pack" it the way it was, why would anybody else give a damn....must only be junk...........

[Rick F]

Sorry to read you're having trouble 'goodgigs'. If you're still having trouble, do you have Malwarebytes on you computer? This is a good utility for "On-demand" scanning for suspected infection.

Here's a link if you need it... and I only use the free version:

Malwarebytes
If you do download and install, be sure to run the update before scanning.

Hope this helps.

[clunkertruck]

You may notice that I'm not spelling so good lately and this is because my MS.Word won't open.

My exxcuse is tat I fall aslept throgh engliss klass in sccool--

(Way too many beers !)

[Dan Schultz]

This is a very good argument for just spending a few bucks and installing (and updating regularly) a GOOD name-brand anti-virus program.

[termite]

I'm not up to date on all this but last time I looked up internet security on the Geek forums the general concensus seemed to be that you needed at least two different anti-spyware programs and two anti-virus programs to be up to date with most of the latest threats. The preferred programs seem to change on a regular basis.

Pretty much any email what so ever which appears to be from any financial institution, any shipping company, Ebay, Paypal, or the tax department will be a fraud.

I don't think I've ever had a real email from any of the above.
While we're on the subject I think every virus etc. warning that has ever been forwarded to me has been a hoax.

In Outlook Express you can look at the text in the body of the email in the preview pane without clicking on the email and opening it. At least I think that anything embedded in the text doesn't run this way but maybe someone who knows more about computers can chime in here.

Regards

Gerard

[bort]

I got one of these too, and thought it looked ridiculously fake. Any big company like UPS, banks, cell phones, etc. go to great lengths to make their communications 1) use proper English and 2) look "pretty" (logos, slogans, banners, etc.). They also pull data from other fields to personalize the email. They would never send "Dear customer." ... it would say "Dear [John Smith]" (or whatever).

That UPS email was plain text and ugly as can be.

Another thing if you find a suspicious email, copy the text from the email and Google it. Chances are, by the time you get one of these emails, thousands of other people already have and have written about it online.

[Rick F]

In Outlook Express you can look at the text in the body of the email in the preview pane without clicking on the email and opening it. At least I think that anything embedded in the text doesn't run this way but maybe someone who knows more about computers can chime in here.

Actually, some viruses can launch just from being viewed in the preview pane. That's why many suggest NOT using the preview pane.

Sometimes the subject line will have an innocent looking subject, but followed with several spaces so you don't see the exe at the end... which may be off the page. They get pretty tricky at times. Most AVs will catch these as 'suspect'. Thankfully most ISPs today have built in AV scanners for email. I haven't recv'd an infected email in over three years... thankfully. I never open a zip, exe, or com file (executable) unless I'm expecting one from someone. If so, I'll download it and scan it first before opening.