In an article by PC World they report that hackers have gained access to computers at two of the most important science laboratory in the US. The two labs involved are the famous labs of Los Alamos and the Oak Ridge facility. The Oak Ridge facility had a data base of visitors, including social security numbers accessed. The data base went back to 1990 – 2004. With annual visitors running around 3,000 scientists this is potentially a huge mistake.

I told you that to tell you this. The attacks were via phishing type emails with attachments. I want to remind each and everyone of you to never ever under any circumstances open an attachment from someone you do not know. And even if it is from your best friend in the world do not open the attachment if you were not expecting it. They could have accidentally picked up a virus and be spreading it unknowingly. I do not even open unsolicited emails from people I do not know. Some emails can have trackers coded into them that lets the sender know that the address is indeed a active account and therefor marketable. Getting you even more spam. Never ever answer any spam. I tried chasing down the routes email was sent to me and requesting I be removed from their lists with no real success. Mostly I only verified my email account was active and being used so they could send me even more spam. If you do open any of these emails don’t click the links. Especially if you are using Internet Explorer. It still has vulnerabilities and can be attacked by malicious code. Now that doesn’t mean that it is perfectly safe to visit these sites with Firefox as there may be an unaddressed vulnerabilities in it that no one but the hackers know of yet. Nothing is fool proof for a sufficiently talented fool.

If you ebay I would also advise you to have separate accounts for your ebay and paypal emails to come into. Accounts that you do not give out the address. Use an address specifically for them and a separate account to receive your regular mail in. If you have a separate account for your ebay and paypal address, then anything that comes into your main account claiming to be from ebay or paypal you know is a phishing scheme. Even if the email comes to your ebay or paypal email account be dubious of any mails that arrive there claiming to be from them. Never ever click on any links in emails like that. Type the URL into the address bar or use a link from your bookmarks (favorites if you use IE) And If you feel you absolutely must fill out the so called contests or other marketing plows that are asking for your email address then you should have a third account for that that you can throw away once the volume of mail becomes unwieldy.

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