Wednesday, September 22, 2004

A really good reason to not even open spam

Apparently, some spam emails "opt-out" links are actually JavaScript exploits. You click on the link and the malicious script uses an exploit in Internet Explorer to basically turn your PC into a email relay - opening it up to unauthorized access and turning it into a spam source. Nice, huh? No one should click those links anyway, since all it REALLY does is confirm your email address and shows a spam emailer that someone reads mail at that email address. Read the full article on The Register here. So it would be a good idea to not let your mail program run JavaScript, to not open spam mail at all, and to maybe use Mozilla's Thunderbird instead of Outlook/Outlook Express.

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