Uncle Sam Doesn't Want You...

...to give him your opinion in exchange for a credit on your tax account. This is apparently the latest phishing scam using the IRS name & logo to try to defraud people, according to accoutingweb.

So, for the record:

A) The IRS does not ever send taxpayers unsolicited emails. That means they will never contact you via email as a first contact--they will only email you after you have been dealing with some matter and authorized them to contact you via email regarding it.

B) If you're not sure your IRS email is legit, check out their official page on e-mail scams that use their name, found here.

C) If you do get an unsolicited email from the IRS offering you a refund on your credit card as a result of their internal records audit (um, yea, riiight..) and choose not to check it out on the IRS page above, if it is like the one I got this morning, that told me to click on the below address, it is probably not legit.

"w3.tehran.agri-jahad.ir:84/IRS..."

The words in red ought to send up a red flag, even if they are spelled wrong.

(yes, the end of the link has been cut off and no, it is not clickable, just in case someone cruises by who hasn't had their coffee yet this morning)

"It's possible that kittens are the wave of the future,"

says Kevin Larson (no relation that I know of), a researcher at Microsoft.

Check out the full accountingweb article here.

I don't know how newsworthy it is, but, well, how often am I going to get to type something like, "... kittens are the wave of the future,"? It was too good an opportunity to pass up.

Enjoy & have a great weekend!

Excel-erating Spam

A July 23rd ComputerWorld article warns against opening those Excel attachments from unknown senders. No, it's not a virus alert, it's Spam--and not the tasty kind in a can!

As spam filters get better and better, spammers get more and more devious.

First it was the move from misspelling text to avoid keyword filters to images, to avoid any type of content-oriented filtering.

Then spam moved into zip files and I got mail with things like "facts.zip" attached.

In the last couple of months--based solely on the contents of my junkmail box--spam has been hiding in pdf attachments with pseudo-convincing file names like "check-794216998.pdf".

Now CommTouch, an enterprise spam detection software company, tells us the word for spam is Excel. As in Excel (.xls) attachments. The .xls schtick is especially popular with the stock scam spammers, according to CommTouch.

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I have to ask, though. The Internet has been around for a while now. Do people REALLY still click on files sent from unfamiliar names or email addresses?

The IRS is Here to Help

And if you believe that, I have this great bridge for sale...

Seriously, this news is a few days old, but still important. It's a virus alert. The virus comes in the attachment of an email claiming to be from the IRS offering mediation services for a complaint filed against your business.

Yes, your business. It is usually directed to the correct first and last name and business name, making it seem fairly legit. Here is what the IRS has to say about it. Here's Symantec's rundown on it, which includes the full text of the email that is being sent out and a geekily in-depth explanation of what it does to your computer when you click the attachment.

This is scary because, while I am sure there have been others, this is the first virus/phishing scam I've seen that specifically targets not just businesses, but, from the looks of things, small businesses and solo operators.

Having said all that... Who on Earth really thinks a US government agency is going to offer to mediate for them? I'm just sayin'....

Can the CAN-SPAM Act?

Yep. We need to can "Can-SPAM". At least, that's what most email security professionals say, according to John P. Mello's article, "Junk the 'Junk Email' Law".

The law isn't working and spam is getting WORSE. I agree with the article that "opt-out" is an asinine model - why is a spammer's right to annoy me with unsolicited offers (many tied to illegal activities) more important than my right to not be subject to this nonsense? An "opt-in" model, better yet a double opt-in (already in use by ~many~ legitimate email marketers) would also be easier to enforce, since spammers would be required to show PROOF that the recipient has opted in. The burden of proof should lie on the offenders, the spammers, not everyone else, and current law instead makes people prove they have opted-out.