don't get compromised

You all know, or at least I think you know, one of the things I do at work is deal with spam. It's an uphill battle. We get better at blocking it and detecting it, but the spammers also get better at what they do. The biggest problem is when spammers send notices from addresses that look legitimate and ask for account information. People fall for it over and over and over. Usually it's something like "send us this information or your account will be turned off". The user sends the information the second they think they will loose their precious email account. Then the madness happens.

Let's be clear - never......NEVER send anything personal in email. And when I say personal, I mean account information of any kind. NO legitimate email provider will ever ask you to send them your personal account information via email. Never. If you get something like that....even if it looks totally legitimate....it's not. If you get something and you're not sure, always run it past your systems administrator, or whoever the IT people are. Have them advise you if it is legitimate or not. Chances are it isn't. If you have to renew something or pay for something and you get an email notice about it, legitimate vendors will give you a link to a website to do the renewal. This is a whole other can of worms, but you should know if it's a legitimate website if you use their services. If you want to read more about secure websites, check out this site. I promise it's legit :)

Next, never ever store your password or any other personal information in files on your computer. You're just asking for trouble if you do this. Especially PC users. If your computer gets hit with spyware, they're going to find this information and you'll be up a serious creek.

Install anti-virus software on your computer. Go to the big electronic store and find the biggest computer geek that works there. Trust me, they're easy to spot. Ask them what to buy. And then buy it. And then actually install it.

And just a note about computer geeks. It might sound like I'm being.....ummm....unkind when I talk about them. Well, it's nothing like that. I'm married to a computer geek! Some people have even said I'm a computer geek...but they don't know what they're talking about. Anyway, geeks have beautiful incredible brains and should be admired for them. It's just a fact that a lot of computer geeks usually have a certain...look about them....you all know what I'm talking about. Don't act like you don't know. I say usually because this isn't always the case. Some geeks don't look the part, but generally if you talk to them for more than a minute, you start to get a sense of it. I work with geeks....tons of them. To look at some of them in passing, you might not know. But like I said, after you start talking to them, it's going to become obvious.

Alright, that's my spheele. Go forth and email securely and admire the geeks in your life.