Have You Gotten One of These Emails?

This has nothing to do with teaching Elder Law, but is useful info (I think) for all of us.  I previously blogged on November 27th, about “luck that arrives in an email” (and as an aside, today I won a lottery, a sweepstakes, and had someone offer me 40% of the millions he was able to save from his greedy government. I think today alone my “winnings” exceed $2 million).  I also frequently get emails from our “system administrator” that I’m exceeding my email quota (that seems reasonable) or some other techy thing that needs my attention.  In the words of Dr. Evil, “right“….

So I was interested in the December 12, 2013 story run in ZDNet by Charlie Osborne for Zero Day on The five most dangerous email subjects to watch for.  The article discusses work from the  Websense researchers  and it’s worth reading for any of us who use email. The story notes the top 10 countries from which phishing scams originate and offers the top five subject lines typical to phishing emails:

1. Invitation to connect on LinkedIn
2. Mail delivery failed: returning message to sender
3. Dear Customer
4. Comunicazione importante
5. Undelivered Mail Returned to Sender

The article offers suggestions to avoid being a victim–strong security on your computer and common sense.  Plus, here is one of my own.  I don’t think it hurts to make sure that your IT folks are your new best friends, if they aren’t already (bring them Starbucks or candy on a regular basis-you can’t believe how they can save you technology headaches).  The article from Websense is available here.  We all need to be extra careful out in the virtual world.