If you live in a German-speaking region, then you might have received one or two strange emails last month, which were unlike the huge amount of regular spam often seen. The first type of odd email was multiple instances of alleged invoices that were sent as email attachments by local ISPs or other service providers. The disguised attachment had a .pdf.exe double extension, which was not an invoice document at all, but a Downloader. Some people thought it was a scam asking for payment for a service that was never received (which was not true in this case), but even so the decision to immediately delete the email was the right choice.

At the end of January, another strange email made its rounds. This one claimed to come from the Bundeskriminalamt (BKA), the federal police in Germany. The email text mentioned charges against the user for downloading illegal movies and software and referred to the attachment as a fax form for statements that had to be completed as soon as...

What better time than January to review last year's security issuesand discuss predictions for the coming months of 2007. This issue ofSymantec's Home and Home Office Security Report looks into this, aswell as discussing current potential risks and threats that couldimpact home and home office users.

On January 20, 2007, a critical security flaw in Apple iChat wasreported. Hackers could use the flaw to break into your computer,allowing them to read your email messages and address books, steal yourfiles and software, and use your computer to carry out further hackingattempts. A hacker could also take advantage of the flaw by enticingyou to visit a malicious Web site or open a malicious file. When theWeb site is loaded or the file is opened, the malicious content willtake advantage of the flaw and allow the attacker to gain control ofyour computer. At the time of this writing, Apple had not yet releasedsolutions for all of these problems, but you can protect yourself...