You may see an official looking message like this in your email box. The wording will vary, but the concept of a so-called message from your email provider with an attachment is the red flag.

I have been receiving more and more of these types of SPAM. But I know this is not legitimate because I control the entire domain that these 2 email addresses are related to, and neither email address is real. A SPAMMER just made them up and most likely included a virus in the attachment.

Example message:
------------------------------------------------
From: administrator@web-potentials.com
To: fred@web-potentials.com
Subject: *DETECTED* Online User Violation
Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 21:00:26 -0400

Dear user fred,

It has come to our attention that your Web-potentials User Profile ( x ) records are out of date. For further details see the attached document.

Thank you for using Web-potentials!
The Web-potentials Support Team

+++ Attachment: No Virus (Clean)
+++ Web-potentials Antivirus - www.web-potentials.com
Attachments

Files:
nmutnf.zip (31k)
------------------------------------------------

If you receive a message like the one above, please do not open the attachment. To verify its authenticity, compose a NEW email message to the support or customer service department of the domain name where you have your email address. If you do not know what that is, manually type in the domain name into your browser and look for the customer service or support link. The domain name is the part after the "@" sign in your email address.