5.)
HOT BIZ*TIP
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Email
Forwarding: A Cautionary Tale
I have talked a
lot about email security, good email practices, how to avoid spam and
phishing scams, etc. But here is an area not often mentioned, which
deserves our attention: email forwarding.
Recently a friend
of mine who knows I am in the business of protecting people on the
Internet, forwarded to me by email a copy of a newsletter he
subscribes to. He thought I might be interested in it, as it dealt
with new software, including security programs which I use and
recommend. He was right. I was so interested that I clicked the
“Subscribe Now” link at the bottom, intending to sign up right away.
But I then found
myself in my friend’s account! I could have changed his email address
or preferences, or altered his subscriptions. I tried closing and
reopening my browser, even restarting my computer, to no avail. The
simple act of visiting that web site through my friend’s link had
caused the site to put a cookie with his account info on my hard
drive. I had to delete all cookies on my PC, to solve the problem.
So please be
careful when forwarding material such as newsletters. Beware of links
such as Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Manage Your Account, etc. Try to
avoid including them. You can copy and paste the email into a plain
text file (ending in .txt), then copy and paste it back into an
email. That should deactivate the links.
Of course, the
simplest solution to this problem is to simply copy the actual body
only of the material you want to forward, and then paste it into a new
email. That would work nicely for the excellent newsletter you are
reading right now, for example.
While we are on the
subject, email is one of the main ways viruses gain access to your
computer. But most malware exploits weaknesses in Windows that were
patched months ago. So if you do nothing else, make yourself a sticky
note and paste it on your computer: Thou shalt update Windows
monthly!
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