MARLBOROUGH — The Better Business Bureau issued an urgent SCAM alert cautioning businesses and consumers about an email that looks like it is from BBB, with the subject line “Complaint from your customers.”

This e-mail is fraudulent. BBB warns you to ignore its contents and delete it immediately. If you have already clicked on a link in the e-mail, run a full virus scan of your computer.

The e-mails have return addresses that BBB does not use (one example is riskmanager@bbb.org) and it is signed with the address of the Council of Better Business Bureaus, the national office of the BBB system. The e-mail contains a link to a non-BBB web site. Do NOT click on the link.

BBB is working with law enforcement to determine its source and stop the fraudulent campaign.  http://www.bbb.org/us/article/ALERT-Malicious-Complaint-Email-Claiming-Its-From-BBB-30916

Walgreens pharmacy chain alerted customers today that their email addresses may have been stolen by spanners.

“We recently became aware of unauthorized access to an email list of customers who receive special offers and newsletters from us,” the company said in the email. “As a result, it is possible you may have received some spam email messages asking you to go to another site and enter personal data. We are sorry this has taken place and for any inconvenience to you.”

The company did not say how many addresses may have been stolen.

According to the statement, only the customers’s email addresses were taken. No prescription information, credit card numbers or addresses were stolen.

“Online security experts have reported an increase in attacks on email systems, and therefore we have voluntarily contacted the appropriate authorities and are working with them regarding this incident,” Walgreens said.

Concerned customers can call Walgreens at 888-980-0963.

Well, it’s happened.

Facebook has been hit with instant messaging spam.

Blast saw it first-hand when a friend who we haven’t talked to in a while randomly IM’d us about a “free” “giftcard” she’d “won” at a certain “website”.

We’ve gotten used to Facebook spam, with people’s accounts being hijacked to write on all their friends’ walls, but not this.

Nothing is sacred. Nothing is pure. You bastards.

With help from Energized Solutions LLC

Spring is the time of year when the weather becomes nice enough that we can open the windows, air out the house, and clear out the clutter that has accumulated over the winter months. In an increasingly digital age, we must also consider cleaning out our email inboxes.

Email is a tool that allows people to expedite communication and share information at unprecedented speeds. The effectiveness of email, however, depends upon a user’s ability to efficiently use the technology. Email should be used to assist with work and not be the work.

The time we spend going through emails adds stress and extra work to our daily routines. Instead of playing catch-up with email all the time, there are several proactive practices that can be used to increase the email productivity.

Kathleen Alessandro is a productivity expert and president of Energized Solutions in Dearborn, Mich. She offers these suggestions to increase email productivity, allowing you to spend more time doing what you need to do instead of playing catch-up on emails.

1. Keep your inbox manageable. When you get new emails, reply or forward if necessary and then delete or archive the email. Only leave “active” emails in your inbox.

2. Set aside time everyday to remove items that are no longer active from your inbox.

3. Get to the point. Sending short, clear messages without the fluff means you can get through messages more quickly. Tell your colleagues to do the same.

4. Put the message in the subject line. This makes finding and acting upon messages faster.

5. Use a full signature with all of your current contact information. This reduces the time it takes following up on messages.

6. Use folders. Label folders so you can easily sort, find, and manage your projects.

7. Create a casual reading folder. Place all of your electronic newsletters or mass updates in this folder. If you know where they are, you can come back to them when you have time.

8. For email strings, use a concise and relevant subject line. This makes sorting and following-up easier for all parties involved.

9. Think before hitting “Reply All.” Most times, not everyone needs to know every little detail and it just adds to overall email clutter.

10. Do not send “inspirational” emails or other forwards to work accounts. Enough said.

On Thursday, some good news hit the battered lungs of a billion junk email filters like pure oxygen: Eleven of the world’s most prolific spammers — nine of whom live in the U.S. — were indicted by the Department of Justice.

According to papers unsealed in Detroit, the electronic highwaymen, facing a 41-count indictment, are a geographical grab bag, ranging from Queen Creek, Calif. to Hong Kong to Russia.

One of the alleged scams includes cooked up pump and dump stock schemes for Chinese corporations hungry to score First World dough. In these cases, Americans are told stocks are going to go up, people buy up the stock, and in the end only the company makes money.

According to U.S. Attorney Stephen J. Murphy, it was, “one of the largest illegal spamming and fraud operations in the country.”

The indictment is the culmination of the three-year investigation, in which the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Internal Revenue Service, and even the Postal Service, all assisted. Not a bad coup for old snail mail.

In 2005 alone, federal investigators estimate that the ring generated $3 million with their scams.

Though it’s unclear how many of the spammers are in custody, and the indictment isn’t likely freeze the torrents of junk hitting your inbox every day, it is a refreshing bit of action from the Justice Department.

It’d be nice to see more of these shots across the bow in the future, and if the Postal Service has anything to say about it, a few more direct hits.

Charged:

• Alan M. Ralsky, 52, of West Bloomfield, Mich.
• Scott K. Bradley, 46, of West Bloomfield, Mich.
• Judy M. Devenow, 55, of Lansing, Mich.
• John S. Bown, 47, of Poway, Calif.
• William C. Neil, 45, of Fresno, Calif.
• Anki K. Neil, 36, of Fresno, Calif
• James E. Bragg, 39, of Queen Creek, Ariz.
• James E. Fite, 34, of Whittier, Calif.
• Peter Severa, age unknown, of Russia
• How Wai John Hui, 49, of Vancouver, Canada and Hong Kong
• Francis A. Tribble, of Los Angeles, Calif.

Internet security firms are reporting a new trend in the “pump-and-dump” spam world — e-mails containing MP3 advertisements.

McAfee Avert Labs reported the phenomenon yesterday. “The spammed MP3 attachments promote a company enjoying huge success in Canada and expecting amazing results in the USA,” wrote McAfee’s Vinoo Thomas “These audio files are of very poor quality and one has to literally strain one’s ears to hear what’s being announced.”

The MP3 ads were encoded using the free LAME 3.97 and sound awful.

McAfee provided a list of filenames — take a look:

“In the last year or so we have seen multiple file types being used in spam runs in an attempt to subvert traditional anti-spam detection techniques. From plain text to ASCII art, image spam, DOC, FDF, PDF, RAR, and XLS,” Thomas wrote. “Thinking out of the box has given stunning results for these creative spammers.”

This doesn’t come as a surprise to industry pros.

“MP3 spam is a natural progression from PDF and Excel spam whereby spammers are exploiting a new file format to be able to send spam.” said David Vella, director of product management for GFI software. “This is their latest attempt to evade anti-spam filters. There is also a social engineering aspect to this tactic because people frequently share MP3 files.”

Have a listen.