Posted by #1 Son on December 06, 02 at 09:24:43:
A friend at workd sent me the following warning issued by their I/T Security at NASA/Johnson Space Center in there network. Please be VERY careful this season!
#1 Son
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This is "social engineering" at its most insidious! While seemingly innocuous these all perform actions that could have serious consequences, bypassing and changing the security controls on the desktop. It takes little additional effort to drop a Trojan or delete all files on a computer.
This was checked out at the link below and confirmed as being true:
http://www.snopes.com/computer/virus/friend.htm
Beware of Greeting Card Spyware
Just in Time for the Holidays: Those cute little electronic greeting cards you occasionally get from friends may be a real problem. The ones I'm speaking of are those where there's a link that says "[Some Name] has sent you a greeting card. Go here to get your greeting card."
There's a new card company called "FriendGreetings.com" When you get a card notification from them and click on the link, it will take you to their site. You will be notified that you have to install an ActiveX control in order to view the card.
When you begin to install, the first thing that pops up is what is known as a "EULA" (End User License Agreement). It is very long, and you will not read it. They're counting on that. When you scroll to the bottom of it and click "Accept," you have agreed to the terms of the EULA.
Part of what you will have agreed to is to have monitoring/spyware software installed on your computer which will periodically report a vast array of data back to the card company.
The other part that you've agreed to is to have the software send mail to every address in your address-book (if you are using Outlook or Outlook Express).
Please do not respond to these eGreeting cards. The following is a list of sources that you should not respond to:
friend-card.com
friend-card.net
friend-cards.com
cool-downloads.com
cool-downloads.net
friend-greet.com
friend-greeting.com
friend-greeting.net
friend-greetings.com
friend-greetings.net
friend-cards.net
laugh-mail.com
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