Heads up! Cyber crime authority US-CERT issued an alert yesterday (Dec. 2) about new batch of spam is flying around the 'net pretending to be from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The subject lines say things like:
- "Governmental registration program on the H1N1 vaccination"
- "Your personal vaccination profile."
The messages include links to take you to a faked CDC web page with a registration form. The page will drop a drive-by virus into your computer and the form, of course, will take your private data. But even if you don't fill in the form, they've already given your computer the bad-guy flu.
Recommended protection:
- As always; keep your antivirus programs up to date and turned on.
- Get and install updates for your operating system.
- Get, verify and install valid updates for Java and Adobe Reader and all other software add-ons in your computer.
- As most already know; be aware that that requests for information that you did not initiate are always suspect and should be avoided.
- If you think that there's a possibility that the request is genuine, then close the email and go directly to the agency's website.
For example; if you received an email like the ones described here, and you wanted to check to see if perhaps the CDC or your state health agency really did want some participation from you, then the thing to do is:
- Don't click on the link in the email. (Repeat; don't ever click on the link in the email.)
- Open a fresh web browser (that's your program for getting on the web: MSIE or Firefox or like that).
- Go directly to the CDC or your state agency's website and look for a "News" link.
- If you see the story there, then click the link that is on their website. If you don't see the story, then you know it was fake.
- Delete the email message. (Some would say make this one #1.)
For more info on avoiding spam based scams and virus lures, see the PDF document at US-CERT that is all about "Recognizing and Avoiding Email Scams".
Leave a comment