Electronic Greeting Cards
The e-mail looks harmless enough: A link to a greeting card that appears to be sent by a friend.
But clicking
on the link can place porn images on a desktop, download a barrage of x-rated
ads, or send similar e-cards to those listed in Outlook's address book.
No downloadable e-mail attachments to install. No infected disks shared.
All the user has to do is go to a link.
E-mail marketers
-- many of them porn sites -- are increasingly borrowing tactics used by hackers
to trick potential customers into seeing their messages, anti-virus experts say.
And often, they use Microsoft's
ActiveX Controls, which are meant to make Web pages more
interactive, to instantly download their unwanted programs.
"It's like
the boogy man. It's going that way," said Chris Wraight, tech consultant
for anti-virus company Sophos. "You have to be careful and be very, very
suspicious." They're not
viruses or worms, but they are annoying -- modifying a user's computer in ways
they never intended, said Lawrence Baldwin, president of Internet security firm
myNetWatchman.com.
"The general thinking of the average Internet user is that ... by
running antivirus and not downloading executable files, they don't have to
worry," Baldwin said. "But they're getting a false sense of
security."
One e-greeting card prompts warning
There are many such direct marketing e-mails making their way around the globe.
Several elicited enough complaints that they prompted warnings from anti-virus
firms. A spokesman for Cytron Communications, a Canadian company cited by
anti-virus experts, claimed they no longer are using this type of marketing
scheme.
But warnings
continued for cards sent by FriendGreetings.com and other sites run by
Permissioned Media Inc., which listed an address in Panama as their
headquarters.
In most cases,
the e-mail greetings mimic many legitimate greeting card sites by including a
personalized subject line: "(Recipient) you have an E-Card from
(sender)." Within the message, there is a link to the Web site and a
small note: "E-card viewer plug-in may be required to view some
cards."
Those
who click on the link and accept the lengthy user agreement unwittingly download
a program (probably an ActiveX
Control) that peppers them with porn-filled pop-up ads and hands over the
e-mail addresses in their Outlook e-mail address book to the marketer.
I advise users to
avoid clicking on e-mail links to sites they don't recognize. I suggest
disabling the Internet Explorer function that allows browsers to instantly
download ActiveX Controls.
Doing so will cause a warning box to appear anytime such files are encountered,
which could get annoying because Macromedia Flash, used to create Web
animations, uses ActiveX Controls.
But a little annoyance is worth it in the long run, he said. "You
have to configure your browser to protect yourself." If you have any
problems with configuring your browser, call me and I will try to help.
Remember, I can probably connect to you PC remotely, and I won't
have to come to your site to solve a problem as simple as this.
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