Since last August, we’ve been receiving junk emails that appear to be a Facebook friend and contain a single link (see sample below). The actual email address used is usually a yahoo address. It’s not terribly frequent but it is annoying. We had a customer call in about it, so it seems to be more widespread.

The usual advice applies: Delete the message on sight, and don’t trust strange links even if it seems to be from a friend.

Example Facebook Scam Email

I found a couple articles about this problem:

1. http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidewalt/2012/08/29/facebook-spam-email-spear-phishing/
2. http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-57507648-83/spam-from-friends-is-actually-result-of-facebook-hole/

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It’s that time of year and consumer electronics remain one of the more popular gifts. So we decided to provide you with these 5 tips to help make for a frustration free Christmas morning. If you’ve bought a new computer, smart phone, tablet, or game console for a Christmas gift before you wrap it:

Step 1 – Check it out

• Open it carefully and make sure it works.
• Make sure its charged up or has fresh batteries.
• Wireless game controllers may have a rechargeable battery or require standard AA or AAA batteries.

Step 2 – Get it Working

• Read over the Quick Start guide or other instructions, or find a YouTube video on how to run it.
• Set it up on your WiFi or home network.
• Ensure it can get on the internet.

Step 3 – Lock it Down

• Install any system updates (the new Wii and other game consoles need this too!).
• For Windows PC’s, install an anti-virus product.

Step 4 – Make it Yours

• Install any “must have” software or games, for example, you might need to reinstall games or software from your old computer using the original CD or DVD.
• Use the “Windows Easy Transfer” or Macintosh “Migration Assitant” tool to copy over data from your old computer.
• Set up custom desktop wallpaper (window, maybe you have a photo with Santa that could work?

Step 5 – Wrap It Up

Carefully repackage it and wrap it up!

Bonus

Here’s a play list of helpful YouTube videos for each of the above tips. There are videos for both Windows and Mac users, if a video doesn’t apply to you, just skip it.

Have a Merry Christmas!

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We would like to wish all of our customers, partners, and suppliers a very Merry Christmas and wonderful New Year!

Our office hours during the holidays are:

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Two different email scams were launched over the weekend by criminals looking to trick unsuspecting people into providing their email usernames and passwords. One email appeared to come from Microsoft, and the other from “Netidea.com Customer Service”. Both emails used convincing fake webmail login forms that look quite real, but are not and are designed to provide your username and password to them. Once they have access to a stolen email account, it is used to sent out spam through our servers to avoid blacklists and spam filters.

If you have filled in either of these two forms, you will need to change your password right away. You can change your password yourself on our web site by clicking on the Account icon on the top right corner of our screen. The proper internet addresss (URL) for our online account page always starts with: https://www.secure-by-design.com/

Valid email login pages for our webmail service are:

1. https://mail.secure-by-design.com/
2. https://mail.netidea.com/
3. https://zimbra.sbdemail.com/

The domain (mail.secure-by-design.com) should always be followed by a slash, and come immediately after the https:// or http://. For example, https://mail.secure-by-design.com.someothersite.com//wp-content/images/login.htm looks almost right, but has a period instead of a slash, and would point to a fake page.

As always, be careful when visiting any site that you have to provide a username and password for. Be sure to watch for changes in the address bar, as often that is the only thing that gives away a forgery!

Here are some screen grabs of the fake emails and the fake login pages:

Fake Microsoft Email

Fake Outlook Web Access

Fraudulent email from netidea.com “customer service”

False Webmail Login Page

Sincerely,
Kirk Ismay

Secure by Design Technology

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The Secure by Design office will be closed on Monday, November 12th to observe Remembrance Day.

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Our office will be closed on Monday, October 8th.
We will reopen Tuesday, October 9th.
We hope you have a safe and happy long weekend!

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Our office is closed on Monday, September 3rd for labour day.

Have a safe and happy long weekend!

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Our office will be closed for Monday, August 6th for the BC Day holiday. We are also closed Saturday and Sunday as usual.

As always, our technicians will be close at hand to tend to any system alerts, should they arise.

Have a safe and happy long weekend!

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Our office will be closed for the Victoria Day long weekend, including Monday, May 21st.

Our technical staff are available to respond to all system-wide emergencies.

Have a great long weekend!

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Prices to Increase – Starting May 1st

After recent petitions for price increases and rulings (CRTC 2011-703 & CRTC 2011-704) between the CRTC, (Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission) and incumbent telecom carriers, our suppliers have in turn increased our rates by an average of 8% for ADSL services, effective May 1st, 2012. We only received notice of the new rates Tuesday morning ourselves, so we do apologize for the short notice.

Download Speeds Will Double

All legacy speeds 1.5Mbps, 2.5Mbps, 3.0Mbps, 4.0Mbps will be aggregated into a “Up to 6.0Mbps” rate, as a result our old plans no longer exist.  Customers on our old 6.0Mbps plan ($60/month) will be shifted over to one of the new plans, so those customers will save money.

New Separate Pricing for Businesses

Under the new rate shedule, our service plans will now be classified by Residential and Business ¹, with the new high speed internet plans as follows:

• Residential ADSL: $40/month
• Business ADSL: $55/month

Customers billed monthly will see the increase on their next bill. All qualifying customers² are being upgraded automatically from 3.0mbps to 6.0mbps, doubling your download speed.  Business customers that get upgraded to the 6.0mbps speed, will now be charged the higher rate, starting in May. We will also be phoning affected business to explain the new plans and answer any questions.

We appreciate your understanding with regard to this new price increase and thank you for your continued business.

^1. Customers paying for a business line with the phone company.
^2. Customers having a phone line that is able to support the faster connection.

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