Quote:
Originally Posted by FLBeans
One big way, not the only way, to help yourself from a personal cyber attack is NEVER, EVER click on links that are sent or embedded in emails, texts and chat rooms like this... unless you know this person. You can always Google the subject. I even noticed in a forum that someone stating they had pics they took and wanted to share- said, “Here click on this link!” - I thought, Oh my, don’t!
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Absolutely. That is even more important today, and with this alert. Since one of the tactics in a cyberwar, is to infect millions of personal computers silently. Place the virus and leave it dormant. Then when war is launched, the dormant virus is activated and your computer becomes an agent of the enemy.
So, you could say, it is every American's patriotic duty to practice safe computer usage - as you say, NEVER click on a link from anyone, even if it is from friends or family. Type the address of the link into your browser instead. Also, you should never open (read) emails from suspicious sources "From:
wally_in_etheopia@myplace.com" or "Subject: You won a billion dollars". Hacking today is capable of planting a virus in your computer as a result of your simply reading a post or looking at a photo. And those emails from your children, might not be from your children (it is called spoofing, which means changing the From address to look like someone else) or it might be from your children but they might be infected.
Think of opening emails like having unprotected sex with a complete stranger that appears to be strung out on heroin...