Watch out for the “Free 101 Mini-Articles” email scam

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Tuesday, 29 April 2008 14:13

Opinion and Analysis

The latest email starts off says that it comes from “NetBizHelpers: Your Guide for the Digital Frontier!”.

I’ve no idea if these people are legitimate, but if they are, their company has had its identity stolen, or hijacked.

The subject line says: “Your FREE 101 Mini-Articles is HERE!”

Already, both of these things raise alarm bells, as it’s unsolicited, and especially if you’ve never heard of NetBizHelpers.

Then the email starts off worryingly, too – unless you name is “Andras”.

The email says:

“Hi andras,”

“Thanks so much for requesting the "101 Free Mini-Articles"! This terrific new resource will provide you with TONS of great articles you can use on your website, and in your newsletter or ezine.”

“Included is giveaway rights ... load it up on your website or use it as a bonus for your subscribers!”

“************ NEW PRODUCT ALERT ************ Master Resale Rights to over 30 Great Software Packages for less than $2 EACH!”

Now, if you’re running a website, or an ezine, or are interested in the topic, the email looks relatively legit – and the attachment is sitting there – 101.zip - waiting for you to open.

I used AVG Free Edition 8.0 to scan it – but it came up ‘clean’.

So I opened the zip file with an unzip program, and saw that the file within is called 101.exe.

If I had opened the file, AVG may have sprung into action – or perhaps not. The file may be too new, but opening “.exe” files from emails is a very dangerous thing, as they are usually malicious files that will load spyware, malware or other software, and will likely join your computer up to a botnet, so its resources can be used for online criminal purposes.

So... please don’t open this email, and please be careful about opening any emails with free offers to see naked pictures, or free books, or anything else, especially if you haven’t asked for any information to be sent.

While I’m hoping most people will have been aware enough to avoid this trap, I’m sure some have been affected.

If you have been affected, you need to use whatever computer security software you have to scan your computer and clean it, and possibly other spyware cleaning software, but that’s a whole other article.

So... please be careful. We still live in the era of the wild, wild web, and it's going to get worse before it gets better.