There are a number of products available to help you remove and prevent the installation of adware and spyware. I have recommended Ad-aware in the past, and in fact, with the newest version, it is still a good choice for removal of spyware and adware. Unfortunately if you want to use it to prevent installation of spyware and adware you need to purchase the commercial version. Ad-aware can also be a little confusing to configure and is a little less effective at removing some offending software than is Spybot Search & Destroy.

Panda SpyXposer is a free online scanner that purports to detect spyware, dialers, hacking tools, and other security risks. It doesn't actually remove it, but it does provide a handy log file you can save and use to ferret out the unwelcome additions to your system. I ran Panda SpyXposer on a system I use for casual Internet surfing. SpyXposer ferreted out 31 instances of 'spyware'. All were cookies. Since I view cookies as mostly benign and often quite useful (customizing the content I see on my favorite websites, for example), I wasn't thrilled to see cookies labeled as spyware.

Phishing is a scam in which the attacker sends an email purporting to be from a valid financial or eCommerce provider. The email often uses fear tactics in an effort to entice the intended victim into visiting a fraudulent website. Once on the website, which generally looks and feels much like the valid eCommerce/banking site, the victim is instructed to login to their account and enter sensitive financial information such as their bank PIN number, their Social Security number, mother's maiden name, etc. This information is then surreptitiously sent to the attacker who then uses it to engage in credit card and bank fraud - or outright identity theft.

Phishing is a scam in which the attacker sends an email purporting to be from a valid financial or ecommerce provider. The email tries to trick recipients into clicking a link which leads to a spoofed website that only looks like the real bank or ecommerce site. If the recipient enters their login details on the fake website, their credentials will be sent to the attackers. Using this method, attackers are often able to gain not only the login username and password, but quite often the victim also divulges their credit card and other sensitive financial and personal information.

Be extra suspicious. Suspect a scam if (a) the greeting card doesn't address you by name; (b) the card sender's name isn't included in the body of the email; (c) the name isn't familiar; and (d) it's not a holiday, a birthday, or any other occasion that might warrant a card. If the card requires that you install a special viewer or tries to download a file to your system, treat it like a trojan. Cancel the download and scan your system with up to date antivirus software.

The latest greeting card scam is once again targeting Hallmark. The bogus email claims "you have recieved a Hallmark E-Card!" The first tip-off for the security conscious should be the misspelled 'recieved' - it's I before E except after C (or when sounded like A as in neighbor and weigh). One would assume the prose experts at Hallmark would know their receive from their recieve - which, of course, they would. In any event, the message doesn't even read like a real Hallmark notice, which always identifies the sender by name and gives you an alternate link URL that you can copy and paste in lieu of blindly clicking a link. Why is this important? Because a real Hallmark URL doesn't point to an IP address followed by 'postcard.exe' - which the malicious link does.

Before the popularity of email, Nigerian 419 scams (aka Advanced Fee Fraud) were originally sent over fax machines and by snail mail. Today, email is the preferred method of these scammers and there are more Nigerian 419 Advanced Fee Fraud scams than ever before.

No matter what country the scammer pretends to be from, all Nigerian 419 scams share a common thread. They start with drama, add a call to action, end with a call for secrecy, and close with a gesture of goodwill. This particular scam starts off like this:

Nigerian 419 schemes are quite old, dating back to pre-Internet days when the scam was carried out via fax. Basically, someone (usually from Nigeria or South Africa), claims to be the deceased relative of some dignitary who has been left large sums of cash, and needs your help laundering it. What many don't realize is that these 'too good to be true' scams have sometimes ended in kidnapping and murder - so they are hardly benign.

Ever received one of those emails that pretends to be TO someone else, passing on some hot stock tip they've learned? Referred to as 'pump and dump' scams, the intent of the email is to get lots of people to take advantage of this unexpected windfall of information and buy the stock. This inflates the price, at which time the scammers sell their shares for a hefty profit. It works like this: