Privacy, Hacking and Virus Alerts

"First, the sending of spam, followed by phishing attacks, then the exploiting of vulnerabilities and the spreading of malware."

The result is that people are inadvertently telling their co-workers and loved ones how to raise their I.Q.’s or make money instantly, or urging them to watch an awesome new video in which they star.

These e-mails are fraudulent and were not sent by the FDIC.

BBB received a call today from a Laurel, MT teacher who has been receiving information from several students and parents about highly deceptive college prep pitches being made to Montana families of teens. Here’s how the call goes:

Cyveillance has issued a new report showing anti-virus programs fail more often than they succeed in protecting you from bad things on the Internet.

While searching the Web for the latest celebrity news and photos may be your favorite Internet pastime, it can also potentially lead to some unintended pain.

Junk mail can now be identified based on a single packet of data.

"The clear message spammers are giving us is that they are unimpeded by the efforts of law enforcement and the security community.”

"There’s isn’t an investigation into the company, but we have received five calls from business owners about Company Funds, and I think all five decided not to sign a contact with them after speaking with our personnel," O’Brien said. "The sixth inquiry happened after the Office of Consumer Protection received one of Company Fund’s recorded messages on their office answer machine."

The dreaded Conficker computer worm is stirring. Security experts say the worm’s authors appear to be trying to build a big moneymaker, but not a cyber weapon of mass destruction as many people feared.