Phishing

[PADemD]

A couple of weeks ago, I received a warning from a site to which I subscribe that their system had been hacked. Since then, I have received phishing e-mails for an adult site but they use NYTimesDirect or other sites to which I subscribe in order to get past the hotmail junk mail filter. Is there a virus on my PC? How do I get rid of this nuisance? Any help will be greatly appreciated.

[hermetic]

1. Have you

run Malwarebytes? That would tell you if you have a virus.

As for the e-mail, perhaps use a different one and move your subscriptions there, then you can just dump your junk folder daily without worrying about losing something you wanted to see.

Good luck.

[PADemD]

3. Anti-Virus

Hi Hermetic,

I just ran Avast on my PC and there were no viruses. I guess I'll just have to take the NY Times out of my contact list.

[Jersey Devil]

2. do you really mean 'phishing'?

Phishing is simply an attempt to masquerade as a reliable web site requesting personal information like passwords, etc. If you are getting mail that attempts to mimic a site like the NY Times the best bet would be to simply not answer it. I don't know of any legit web site that will ask you to email back to them any personal information.

If any of these emails contain attachments don't open them. I never open attachments unless I am 100% certain of where they came from. Also keep away from opening attachments on those chain type emails that are forwarded to you by unknown parties.

Generally you are not going to get a virus simply because you received an email (though that could happen if you "preview" some email in Outlook for example).