Surrounded by computer experts and a detail of Secret Service Men, even the presidential candidate was not immune to a malware scam. Millions of the former First Lady's supporters and constituents received an email entitled ?Hillary Clinton Full Video!!? The email did not contain a video of Mrs. Clinton; it had absolutely nothing to do with her in fact. Instead, the email contained an intrusive, annoying and sometimes dangerous malware scam.



Earlier this year email was widely distributed with the subject line ?Hillary Clinton Full Video?. Because of the intense and ground-breaking level of interest in the election this year, many people opened the email to view the presidential-hopeful up close and personal. Unfortunately, they were in for a surprise; and it was not a good surprise.

Developed to interfere with computers in a variety of ways, malware is computer software or a computer code. Malware may contain any of the following, and can include any of them in combination as well: spyware, adware, pop-up ads, spam and computer viruses. While spam and pop-up ads are annoying, computer viruses can be dangerous. Some malware installs computer viruses which delete all of the user's files. Other viruses will slow the computer, shut it down or damage it beyond repair.

With the popularity of this campaign it is fortunate, and somewhat surprising, that only Ron Paul and Sen. Clinton have been targets of Malware thus far. Spam expert from Symantec, Mr. Douglas Bowers, stated they were concerned this might happen due to the interest in the election this season. Per Mr. Bowers ?We predicted there would be socially-engineered spam for the election season and now it's arrived. We are seeing a low volume of this now, but we expect it to increase as we approach the election and to use other candidates?.

Even sophisticated internet security packages like Norton Internet Security and Spyware Dr. are unable to stop malware every single time. One of the most common ways malware is able to remain undetected is to be delivered in the form of a Trojan horse or Trojan. In broad terms, a Trojan horse is a program which invites users to run it and conceals an intrusive, malicious payload.

So, if Hillary Clinton and her staff were unable to bypass a malware scam, how can you? Internet security suites are constantly being updated to detect the latest malware and they will catch some of it. No security package is able to detect and block all malware ? at least not yet. As often is the case, the best defense is a good offense. It's up to the computer user to exercise caution.

Investing in security software for your computer is worth doing. The other thing computer users can do is to exercise caution, particularly when opening email. If possible, do not open ANY email that comes from an unknown source. While nothing is foolproof just yet, doing these two things will greatly enhance your chances of avoiding an attack of a malware scam.