Over the last few days my email filter has alerted me to approx. 73kB size emails with an attached pdf. In all cases as far as I can tell, the "sender" is different, so it's difficult to bulk filter them out, particularly as I occasionally get important emails from family members with a pdf attached. Overnight the trickle has turned into a flood, so I'm wondering if this is a new virus activity?
Or an attempt at a "Denial of Service" attack?

 

Ive just had something with a pdf attachment, dont know who the sender was its already off on its way to spamcop.

 

It's because of a recently found security flaw in Adobe Acrobat reader (which reads pdf's)

Don't open them!

SEE HERE

K

 

I have received the same kind of document, and have just 'Junked' it in Thunderbird. Maybe someone has found a way of attaching a virus or whatever to an Acrobat doc, maybe via the ZIP compression, (Which seems to be applied to some Acrobat files.) so you don't see it?

 

Moi aussi. Also, I seem to be the Royal Bank of Scotland's new best friend as I'm bombarded with mails from them. Or someone pretending to be them. Most tiresome.

 

I've not received one yet but thanks for the information.

 

Don't worry too much about them. Its just the lastest scam to persuade you to part with money for stocks and shares in obscure organisations that are due to skyrocket tomorrow. Except, I don't know if they ever do ..........

Its a bit like the 'boilerhouse' telephone scams a few years ago.

They are a niusance, but about the only thing you can do is to delete them, as they always come from different e-mail addresses.

Up until recently, these e-mails came with embedded imaages in them, (so they could not be read by spam filters), but this has now been superceded by the PDF thing.

I know there is a potential virus risk from PDF files, but I don't think these are infected.

Having said that, over the past day or so I have started to recive e-mails with PDF attachments having very obscure names, but they have just followed the others into the waste bin. Norton has not identified any of them as a risk (but then that is Norton).

Why can't these people get a proper job?

I read a report in 'The Thunderer' last week, predicting that the entire e-mail system could fail within the next three or four years owing to the sheer volume of Spam. Whatever happened to Bill Gates promise to eradicate spam within two years?

 

I have quite consciously NOT signed up for electronic banking with my High Street bank of some 40 years standing i.e. the one into which my salary was paid. (I use Visa from another bank for electronic purchases.)

Recently I wanted to query whether a cheque had cleared or whatever, so I phoned my bank's enquiry number, and had a difficult job getting past their security which had simply assumed that I had subscribed to electronic banking of some sort or another with them. Took me around 30 minutes, and insisting on talking to a "Supervisor" to establish that my memory of what I had not signed up to was correct.

What was really worrying was that "they" didn't seem to understand how often our computers get sent these spoof emails, and that the only way, particularly as senility approaches, is to keep things simple!

 

I use e-banking, but my bank simply doesn't email me - a good security procedure, I think - and certainly very simple.

 

As a rule, I don't think banks e-mail anyone, so any e-mail purporting to come from a bank must be regarded as suspicious - especially if it is not your bank!

I think I can safely say that any e-mail from a bank asking to to confirm your details is a SCAM, in which they try to trick you into providing your bankng details and passwords, etc. so they can take money from your account.

If you read the English carefully, you will usually find that the message has a distinctly 'oriental' flavour, and is certainly not from any UK Bank.

Amazingly, many many people fall for these scams, so don't join them. Just delete them.

 

I've used e-banking for years and I don't recall getting any e-mails from my bank. Phone calls, yes but e-mail, no. And if they did start spamming me, I'd tell 'em to stop.

 

There is a guide for avoiding getting scammed on the OFT site:

OFT site

Most banks also have contact points for forwarding dodgy emails to or phoning for advice.....check on their website and hopefuly there will be something (e.g, RBS site)

 

........ Just think about it for a moment.

If the banks relied on [millions of] customers confirming their banking details and passwords every time they updated their software, and disabled the accounts belonging to those people who did not comply, they would have no customers within a year.....

 

They likely would Personally I don't store any personal or financial details on my home PC and don't use phone or PC banking. Shops take cash or cards and utility companies get direct debits...I have no need for anything else

 

But you do shop online right? Ebay etc?

 

Nope

....although I do fancy one of those benchinistas mugs Has been years since I used a credit card....I just buy toys if I have one

Am a lot less bothered about entering details on work computers than my home one....there is a whole team of boys and girls making sure the security is as good as it can be at work.

 

Ooh you full of surprises every day!


mmm day off must go shoping.../

 

No, not a DOS attack - it takes more than that and usually it is done via a tool or a perl script file (although it can be done with other methods), it is also uaually aimed at servers rather than at PC's

Usually mass emails are performed by 'bots' rather than individuals - these are programs written by individuals which have the task of seeking out random email addresses and sending loads of emails with the intention of causing havock and can install malware

Google is a hacker's best friend as it shows up loads of important info - I have managed to find passwords for web servers off google! (I work with security in my own time and have a view of how people can use different techniques to cause a lot of fuss), it is just pointless and annoying

Anyway, google is a main way in which bots search for information and unfortunately, there is not much we can do to prevent this.

Hope it stops soon