Spam
Spam is killing the Internet and that is official. Spam accounts for over 90% of emails today and that figure is growing year on year.

Very depressing considering we all rely so heavily on emails as a way of communicating in business and day to day activities.

Spam is so named because of the Monty Python sketch of the same name; spam spam spam spam.

Below I hope to give you some idea on how we can stop the onslaught of spam, please take a moment to check your systems at least once every few weeks.

Get Protected
The first thing to do is protect yourself by stopping spammers using your machine or gaining access to your accounts for spam.

Purchase a good quality Internet Security package such as Norton or Kapersky, links shown on right edge.

There are a number of free packages available to download from the Internet but these tend not to have the same level of protection or support.

Get CA-Anti-Spam which will free up your inbox from the spam, and make it easy to train your email client how to detect and remove spam.


Never download free software from the Internet or popups unless you know it is 100% safe, many spammers and hackers use free software to get access to your computer.

Where does spam come from?
Spam usually hides itself well, it will generally spoof or fake the return or reply address so it may look as though it was sent from an entirely different account than it was actually sent from.

You may recieve many bounced spam emails informing you that your email failed to get through for various reasons, when you check the email you will find the email address it was sent from is yours but not actually sent from your account.

Unfortunately it is difficult to stop this as emails are very easy to fake.

Spam Zombies
A Spam Zombie is where a spammer/hacker/virus has gained access to a computer and is using it to send out spam using that computers Internet and email account.

How fast is your Internet connection? has it slowed considerably recently? Is the Internet being accessed even when you are not doing anything? Check the network icon to see if it is in use, blue screen indicates in use, black screen shows no network traffic.

Stop this with Anti-Spyware and Anti-Virus software.

Spyware
Spyware is used to spy on your activities and report Internet use usually to then supply targeted pop-up ads relating to your subject preferences.

Stop this with Anti-Spyware, anti-pop-up and Anti-Virus software.

Malware
Malware is Maliscious software designed to infiltrate or damage a computer system without the owners knowledge or consent.

Stop this with Anti-Spyware, anti-pop-up and Anti-Virus software.

Free Services
If you do not have an anti-virus you can try the online free scan from Trend Micros at housecall.trendmicro.com

Download the free (for personal use) spyware checker Ad-Aware SE from Lavasoft www.lavasoftusa.com

Dr Adept Call-out
If you wish you can call out DrAdept to run a system check on your computers to ensure you are secure, contact us on 0870 7019990 for further details.

Stay safe and let's stop the spammers together.