If imac Mountain Lion is so good at preventing antivirus and malware, why am I getting scam emails, ones that are telling me that a problem has been detected and that I should click a link to solve the problem? I never used to get these sort of emails when I had my Windows computer with antivirus and anti maware software installed.
iMac, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8)
Do not bother about those messages. Mark them as junk and remove them.
Hello Alberto. That's what I do but I thought an iMac had its own malware software built in to stop those sort of messages from appearing. Windows used to do it.
I'll give you a hint to prevent windows popping up suddenly.
Open Apple Mail, select Mail menu, Preferences, Viewing icon.
Remove the check mark beside "Display remote images in HTML messages".
OK. I'll take a look at that. Thanks Alberto. Regards. Brian
brbrown wrote:
If imac Mountain Lion is so good at preventing antivirus and malware, why am I getting scam emails, ones that are telling me that a problem has been detected and that I should click a link to solve the problem? I never used to get these sort of emails when I had my Windows computer with antivirus and anti maware software installed.
Because there are still gullible people on the Earth who think a computer is like a toaster.
Those protections don't intercept your email and scan for spam. If you mark it as junk, the spam filter might start grabbing it.
None of the known malware is in that message. If you click on the link and try to install the known malware, XProtect will likely catch that.
brbrown wrote:
If imac Mountain Lion is so good at preventing antivirus and malware, why am I getting scam emails,
Because you are wrong to think that's how it works. OS X nor any other OS has the ability to prevent such items. Filtering is different than preventing.
You need to adjusting the spam settings at the ISP / email provider level via their web control panel or webmail interface. If they don't offer those features, then I suggest you find a new email provider and/or a new email address and alter the way you use that adderss when signing up for things online.
As others have indicated, spam/scam emails are not viruses and depend for their success on naivety, gullibility or unawareness on the part of the recipient. Such emails range from those that require little more than a pulse and an IQ in double figures to recognise, to those that are very convincing and appear to be genuine. Previous posters have suggested various ways that you might be able to filter out at least some of such emails but, to borrow terms from the world of radar, there is a trade-off between the Probability of Detection (ie. the likelihood that a spam/scam email will be spotted and quarantine or deleted) and the False Alarm Rate (ie. the likelihood that a genuine email will be wrongly identified as spam/scam). The only way to stop all spam/scam emails is to stop all emails! If your Windows system never showed you a spam/scam email, then it is almost certain that it stopped some genuine ones as well - did you ever check your junk or quarantine folder? Personally, having been caught out by an occasional important genuine email being classified as junk, I leave all the filters on my ISP server open and simply delete junk after it has been downloaded to my Apple email. It takes very little time and gives me satisfaction that others can then have the benefit from all those mega-millions that just need their bank account details to be provided that the money can be transferred to them.
If they come from the same address, you can create a rule in Mail to automatically delete them.
The difficulty is that spammers/scammers are often smart enough to be able to send emails from hi-jacked email accounts or disguise the sender's address. Some of the spam/scam that I have received has even been from myself after one of my Hotmail accounts was compromised.
bratman91 wrote:
The difficulty is that spammers/scammers are often smart enough to be able to send emails from hi-jacked email accounts or disguise the sender's address. Some of the spam/scam that I have received has even been from myself after one of my Hotmail accounts was compromised.
..........and the person who creates a foolproof way to stop spam and scam mail will make millions. It has worked this way since email began and works this way (although a little more safely) in the present day.
Cheers
Pete
Those emails, Brian --
Are they from Comcast? Or another ISP?
Thank you all for your replies. I am already aware of what you all say but I find it too much of a coincidence that in 17 years of using Windows, I never received a scam email and I always used to check my junk folder and with only one message rule in place. I guess luck comes into it as well. Bee, the last scam email I had was from the Bank of America and I do not use Comcast.
The operting system you use has nothing to do with whether or not you receive junk email
I hope you sent it on to BofA. I got one once from a bank, and reported it to them immediately.
Barney-15E wrote:
brbrown wrote:
If imac Mountain Lion is so good at preventing antivirus and malware, why am I getting scam emails, ones that are telling me that a problem has been detected and that I should click a link to solve the problem? I never used to get these sort of emails when I had my Windows computer with antivirus and anti maware software installed.
Because there are still gullible people on the Earth who think a computer is like a toaster.
Alas no longer, the bread slot has been removed from the new iMacs and the Retinas never had one to begin with. There is however an external toaster available. 🙂
Why Am I Getting Suspect Mail
