Red alert: New, scary phish pop-up???

Opinion
Nov 21, 20051 min

I turned on my XP from sleep mode and got a Windows dialog box saying “Your email address was typed in wrong.” Beneath it was a form to type in your e-mail and password, which I didn’t. Instead, I clicked “cancel” and it went away. But I’m now wondering, is this some spyware/adware-based phish? Anybody else hearing of something this in the wild? And if so, how is it installing with all the anti-virus, anti-spyware and IDS I’m running on this thing? If this is a phish, we must get the word out quickly because I’m sure a lot of people will click it. Just about every day I get a call from my mother asking if she should click a popup saying her computer’s infected, go here to fix it, even though the day before I told her don’t click anything you didn’t ask for. My parents live far away, and all my urging to update and run their anti-spyware goes in one ear and out the other. If this dialog box is a phish, then we’ve got a serious problem.

deb_radcliff

Deb Radcliff is an investigative journalist and analyst focused on computer crime and security. Her work has appeared on Security Boulevard, the SANS Cyber Security Blog, and SC Media, among other outlets. She stood up an analyst program for SANS Institute and ran it for 15 years before joining the Cyber Risk Alliance as strategic analyst on the business intelligence unit. She is author of the popular cyber thriller series, “Breaking Backbones,” available at Amazon.

Deb won two Neal Awards for investigative business reporting. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in journalism from San Jose State University.

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