Paranoia: The Best Defense Against E-Mail Attacks
Here is a question:
I love the Toshiba laptop I bought last year. I keep just about everything related to work, school, and my finances on it. So when I received an e-mail from Toshiba warning that my model may have a data-threatening memory defect, I was anxious to find out whether my machine was affected. A link in the message took me to a Toshiba Web page, which promised to download a utility to my PC that would check for a defective memory module. All I had to do was click one button.
But just as I was about to click that button, a doubt bubbled up from the depths of my digital credulity. Could the whole thing be a scam? Was I about to download and install a Trojan horse, backdoor program, or worm? As it turned out, it wasn’t a trick: Toshiba really did send out an e-mail containing an embedded link leading to an executable file download located at a long, complex Web address…
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