Have You Been Receiving Spam or “Phishing” E-mails? – WRCTC Will NEVER Ask For Sensitive Information Via An E-mail

Below you will find a perfect example of a recently received "phishing" e-mail. "Phishing" is an attempt to acquire sensitive information such as username, password, social security numbers or credit card information by masquerading as a trustworthy entity. Please remember, West River Cooperative Telephone Company (WRCTC) will NEVER ask you to confirm your e-mail username, password or other sensitive information through an e-mail.

"Phishing" e-mails have several similarly flawed characteristics. When looking for "phishing" e-mails, ask yourself these questions:

• Does the e-mail lack sufficient contact information? (phone number, address, contact name, etc.)
• Is there several misspelled words, grammar or punctuation errors?
• Does the e-mail require you to divulge private or personal information?

If you answer yes to one or more of these questions, there is a good chance that the e-mail you received is "phishing" for your information.

When WRCTC sends out an e-mail, it will include the name of the person(s) sending it and our contact information. Please look at the following e-mail received from a WRCTC member. Notice how there is no contact information (sender's name, location, phone number, etc) located at the bottom? This is an example of a "phishing" e-mail. It was NOT sent out by WRCTC.

We want all of our customers to be aware of such scams as they are occurring in our area. If you ever have any questions pertaining to an e-mail you receive through your sdplains account, please contact our office at 777 or 605-244-5213.

Beware: Conficker C Worm

We have been receiving several questions about the Conficker C worm that is on the news
which is set to release on April 1st.  

Here is some information on the Conficker worm:

• The Conficker worm exploits a hole in Windows systems.
• The hole was patched in October 2008, if you ran your Windows Updates.
• The entire capability of this worm is currently not fully known.
• You can go to http://www.confickerworkinggroup.org to get the best information
  on this worm.
• Another great site with virus information is http://isc.sans.org .
• A characteristic of the Conficker worm is that it will block a computer from performing
  Windows Updates; therefore, a simple way to check to see if your computer may be 
  infected is to try to obtain the Windows Updates. If your computer fails to complete the
  Windows Update, it is very likely that you have the worm or some other type of worm or virus.
• The steps to check for Windows Updates are detailed below.

To best protect yourself make sure you perform the Windows updates for your computer
and have an Anti-Virus program installed with the current virus definitions.

Kevin Weishaar
Network Technician
West River Cooperative Telephone Company
777 or 605-244-5213

To ensure that your computer has the latest
Windows updates follow these 4 steps:

1)- Click on "START"

2)- Click on "ALL PROGRAMS"

3)- Click on "Windows Update"
      (it is towards the top of the list)

4)- A window like below should open up.  Click 
     on the "Express" button to check your 
     computer for windows updates.  If the below
     window does not open the computer may have
     a worm or some other form of virus.