Increase in Spam lately. Be vigilant!

Hello FOSSers,

You might have noticed an increase in spam posting in the last few weeks.

These spam bots are here for a single thing: linking to their low quality, spam/scam website.

Some of them are really smart. They are copying from old forum posts and adding the links in obscure places like ? and .

Please be vigilant and report such posts and accounts to the admins/mods using the built in ‘report’ feature.

Keep on Linuxing :slight_smile:

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Hi @abhishek
Do you have this installed?

I think we need to do something to automatically detect these spam posts. They are almost always new users.

Regards
Neville

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I’m certain everyone here already knows this, but I’ll comment about avoiding malware on the Internet anyway. Reminders are never a bad thing.

First a bit of background. When I was little, my mother taught me not to trust strangers because I could not know what their intentions were. That was long before ‘Stranger-Danger’ was a catch phrase, but it was good advice then, and it still is today (and I’m in my 70s). Today, I call that attitude being skeptical (not distrustful).

We should all remember that everything we see, read, or listen to on the Internet is produced by people we do not know, and that we cannot know what their intentions are, so we should take everything with a grain of salt and verify it by finding other sources to evaluate its truth/accuracy, especially when the presented point of view closely matches our own.

Never blindly click any link we find on the Internet, either on a website, or in an email message, or especially in a text message (on a phone). Before clicking, hover the mouse pointer over the link, then compare the URL it will take you to with the link’s label. Example: if the link label reads BestBuy, but the URL (in the pop-up/status line does not start with ‘https://bestbuy.com/’, the link is a trick! DON’T CLICK.

If I receive an email that purports to come from a friend or associate, I check with the purported sender before opening it to ensure that they sent it, and that I can trust what it contains. If they did not send it or it comes from an unknown source, I delete it. This step is much easier for me that it is for most people because I’m retired, so I don’t get business or urgent work-related messages, and I am not too concerned with missing out on whatever it contains because the content is very likely not good for me.

For the most part, this is what I describe as Cognitive Security Awareness. The bottom line is Think before you click or go. You’ll never regret taking a moment before clicking, but you may if you don’t.

My2Cents,

Ernie

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Hi @ernie ,
Well said.
Links are one point of risk.
Watch for suspicious links in itsFOSS replies please.
Dont be afraid to flag something
Regards
Neville

Happy to help! :slight_smile:

Ernie

Another danger point, apart from links , is any email or text message that asks you to install an app. Do not install anything that is suggested, without researching its credibility and whether you really need it.

About 2 weeks ago I received an email from a friend. He was asking for help and wanted me to write back to him asap. I did hover over the sender, it was his address. But I knew something wasn’t right here simply because he would’ve called. So I called him, sure enough, he told me that he was hacked into.
Anyway, what are those hackers hoping for? Maybe the owner does not check emails for days so they can freely operate inside his system? I don’t get it…btw, there was no link in the email. Maybe it would’ve come after I replied?

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Note the first sentence in my fifth paragraph:

If you remember that, you don’t have to hover your mouse over an email address and AFAIK, that doesn’t work as it does with hyperlinks. My tip about hovering the mouse pointer is only intended for hyperlinks in emails and on webpages.

I hope this helps,

Ernie

You raise an excellent point. If such a suggestion comes from someone I know and trust, I check out whatever is suggested, otherwise I ignore it. If, after checking it out, I think it would be useful to me, I consider installing it. The bottom line is that users should install ONLY the software they believe to be useful to them, and ONLY after doing their due diligence by checking out the apps for themselves. Anything we don’t need, or use can be categorized as bloatware IMHO. I don’t like bloatware because it leads to an unstable system, and it wastes disk space that can be put to far better use. For that reason, I keep a list of installed software on each of my computers, and I check it monthly (as one of my monthly maintenance procedures) to seek out apps I no longer need or use. If I find any, I remove them and any junk they leave behind.

Ernie

How do you do that??

I call them on the phone or send a text message asking if they sent an email to me with the subject from the email. You can use any method of verification you prefer. The important part is that you avoid sending an email in the event some miscreant has taken over their email account.

Ernie

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Well, that’s what I did, but only after reading the email and finding it suspicious. I know the guy for 40 years, he does not need help, or, if he does, he would call. I don’t think many of as would go through a complete checking like that if we know who the sender is, before reading the mail. It would mean the freedom and convenient of emailing to friends and family is over.
But, you are right, it should be the proper way. Or just get Proton mail or a VPN. Anyway, I don’t think opening an email like that would do any harm, unless they provide a link in it and you click on it. But I can be wrong…

I love that word!!

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We have Akismet on It’s FOSS main website with WordPress.

I’ll try it on DIscourse as well. Thanks.

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That convenience is not over. But sadly, it’s a bit less convenient. Also, if the email is formatted with http formatting, the sender can use an image as the background. Images can be used to install malware if the recipient’s computer suffers the required vulnerabilities. Such an attack requires no user interaction other than opening the email message. Fortunately, such an attack can be averted by keeping your computer up to date (this is true for GNU/Linux, Windows, and Mac).

I like that word too. It speaks volumes with a single word. :slight_smile:

Ernie

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