Strange Email

[Lin]

I received an email that appeared to be from Nick Badame asking me to look at a particular document.  It told me to sign in using my email account name and password to see it.  I was about to do it, but got suspicious of it being a phishing scam.  It emailed Nick asking about it but have not yet heard back.  Did anyone else get this or know anything about it?

[ArtGill]

Check the email address it came from.  Look for a "country" code at the end of the address sent from or you were to contact.  Most likely someone has stolen Nick's email directory.

Art

[Lin]

The reply email address was the one listed on this site by Nick.  Upon investigating the link, however, it seemed to be to a dental clinic in Brazil.

[Gary Hatt - Publisher BCM]

I am very sorry about this as is Nick.  He confirmed this morning that his email was hacked and our Webmaster Mike Sullivan solved this problem pronto.

If anyone else gets an email from Nick with the Subject line being "Review My Attached Document" please delete it. It should not harm your computer it only takes you to an advertisers website.

Nick is a very conscientious Forum Moderator and would never do anything like this on purpose.

[Dreamscape]

Thanks for staying on top of this and taking care of the problem. I didn't receive anything, but will look out for it.

[muldoonman]

I received one and deleted it without opening. I have asked Nick questions before by getting his email off his business site. He always responds with a excellent answer on my CruiseAirs. He's one of the good ones.

[plyons]

What are you talking about?!!  I clicked on the link and I now have lifetime free dental care any time I want.  All they wanted was my VISA card & SS# to validate my identity. 

   

Kidding - please DON'T click.

[eagle19952]

What are you talking about?!!  I clicked on the link and I now have lifetime free dental care any time I want.  All they wanted was my VISA card & SS# to validate my identity. 

   

Kidding - please DON'T click.

you got rooked... i got a lifetime subscription to fruit of the month club

[opus]

I got it, so I emailed Nick about it...at the same email address.  "Nick" replied "NO, have not been hacked,, i sent the email to you, it is a secured document which i want you to read.. kindly review it".  So someone was live in his email acct.

I have 10 yrs as a internet security consultant, so it was pretty obvious from the beginning what it was.

[HighTechRedneck]

I will followup with Nick in the morning to verify where he is at on the disinfection process. His computer was infected with a fairly advanced bug.  It had even uninstalled his Norton Security antivirus software and disabled SpyBot Search and Destroy.  I advised him on a course of action and he was going to proceed with it.  As per Gary's post, the general feeling was that the problem was resolved.  But the post from Opus has me wondering.

Opus, when did you send that email reply to Nick?

Everyone - It is generally dangerous to click links in emails unless you already know what they are.  In this case, looking at the link reveals that the link is on a server in Brazil (the .br web address tells you that).   Google sites in the U.S. are always .com addresses.

[opus]

Mon, 7 Mar 2016 10:29:10 -0700

Download Malwarebytes and run it.  That will get what you're looking for.  Spybot and Norton are pretty marginal.

[HighTechRedneck]

Opus, that date and time was before Nick performed the remedial actions.  I will check with him in the morning, but I suspect the problem has been fully resolved.

Every year the top ten players in the security/antivirus/anti-malware products play musical chairs in the rankings. Also, different reviewers rank them differently, so the reports vary somewhat.  In 2015 Malwarebytes was one of the top contenders. In the reports I've seen for 2016, two products are ranking within the top three or four in most of the non-sponsored reviews - BitDefender and Kaspersky.

[muldoonman]

Always stuck me funny that some of security folks are home based in foreign countries.

Kaspersky----Moscow
Bitdefender---Romania
AVG------------Czechoslovakia
Avast-----------Czech Republic also

Kind of makes you wonder.

I use WebRoot, based out of Boulder Colorado.

[Gary Hatt - Publisher BCM]

I also use Webroot because I use Geek Squad remote support and they installed Webroot on all of our computers.  I figure if they are using it, it must be good as they would not want to use a product that would cause more problems than it solves.

[HB of CJ]

Or ... would running Lennix (sp?) Mint 17 save you from most, but all, of the hassles?