Have you received an email for a social network claiming that someone you know has posted pictures for you to see? Then you click on the link and fill out the account info just to find out there never were any pictures… You begin to think to yourself, hmmmm. Then the phone calls and emails of your friends start pouring in asking you about the pictures you just set them. “What pictures?”After all the confusion, you figure it out.
An e-mail message inviting people to join The Tagged.com website says it’s from a friend, but looks suspicious. Sometimes it’s a private message or photos, but this trick is not a new one. It will ask you to supply an e-mail address and a password, and if you do, it can access your entire address book and send e-mails to your contacts — doing the same thing to them.
Fortunately, I haven’t been targeted by this spam virus yet. But here are a few ways to protect yourself.
1. Be Smart. If the email doesn’t look familiar, DO NOT OPEN IT! If it is from one of your friends, they will contact you to find out if you received it or not.
2. Proxy Email Address. Speaking from experience, set up an email address with no contacts that you can use to register sites with. Then set up a gmail account under a different name to forward the first account to. This way, if you really want to open that strange email you can do it in the proxy account and delete it from your gmail and protect your contacts.
3. Protect Your Personal Information. Before you give out any personal information over the phone or via the Internet, contact the supposed sender to make sure you know who you’re dealing with. Make sure the website you use to verify identification is legitimate. Do NOT just copy and paste a URL given to you in a suspicious e-mail into your browser!
