Expert Available: October is National Cyber Security Awareness Month

E-mail spam frustrates computer users every day. A nationally renowned cybersleuth and veteran consultant to the FBI warns against the threat of spam. Gary Warner, the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s director of research in computer forensics, says spam may be an attempt to defraud consumers or gain access to your computer. Many spam messages are attempts to sell products to people. “Their economic model is based on the idea that they can send 100 million e-mails a day, and if one-tenth of 1 percent of the people who received them make a purchase, they’re still millionaires in a month.”

October 1, 2007

E-mail spam frustrates computer users every day. A nationally renowned cybersleuth and veteran consultant to the FBI warns against the threat of spam. Gary Warner, the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s director of research in computer forensics, says spam may be an attempt to defraud consumers or gain access to your computer. Many spam messages are attempts to sell products to people. “Their economic model is based on the idea that they can send 100 million e-mails a day, and if one-tenth of 1 percent of the people who received them make a purchase, they’re still millionaires in a month.”

Other spam message senders aren’t trying to sell; they are trying to retrieve information. Computer users should be careful of opening attachments, but even opening certain e-mails alone can cause problems, or what Warner calls “drive-by infections,” giving cyber-criminals access to full control of your computer and everything you type.

October is National Cyber Security Awareness Month. Warner is available to talk about spam and other issues of cyber crime and cyber security. Contact: Ginny Smith 205-934-1676.”