This is a common situation these days. Malicious code has been developed to allow spammers to distribute their junk mail a variety of ways.
In the old days, we’d tell people just to be careful about posting their email addresses on web sites or newsgroups. Today, all it takes is an infected machine on which your email address is saved in an address book!
In order to combat spam, it’s now important for all computer users to keep their machines secured using the latest security software and by making sure operating system updates are done. Sometimes even this is not enough, since modern coders can defeat most commercially available Internet Security applications. Why can’t they use their powers for good instead of evil?
Be careful about designating email addresses or domains as trusted. Many spam filters, including our own, allow users to whitelist specific email addresses or entire domains. Imagine what could happen if you whitelisted the entire hotmail.com domain? That means anyone sending you a message with a return address from hotmail.com is going to get past the spam filter. Unfortunately, you can no longer whitelist your OWN email address! Spammers are sending junk mail to you with your own return address!
What’s a person to do? Make sure your security software is up to date. If you haven’t installed anything, please call ConnectNC to have a tech perform a security scan on your system and install your software. If everyone maintained good system security, we’d go a long way towards eliminating spam that comes from infected machines.
Last, but not least, never, ever buy from a spammer. They’re not sending you junk mail for fun. They’re doing it to make money. About ten years ago, one spammer told me that his employer made $30,000 in one day after they sent out unsolicited commercial email to a very large number of addresses. Their hosting and email accounts were cancelled, but it was well worth it to them. So, let’s try to make spamming an unprofitable venture. We should all agree that we’ll never buy anything that was promoted in an unsolicited message we received.
- Make sure your password is a strong one! Read more about STRONG PASSWORDS.
- Don’t ever give your password to anyone else.
- Keep your system’s security software updated.
Please keep your passwords private!
/in Computer, Dial Up, DSL, Email, FAQ's, security, Web Hosting/by ConnectNCThere are individuals who may send email to you, asking for your account password, or asking you to login to a web site to change your password. These people are posing as technical support people in an attempt to get your account password from you. Once they have your account password, they login to webmail and use your address to send out thousands of “spam” messages across the Internet.
There are a few steps you can take to make sure your account isn’t “hijacked” to use for spamming (sending junk email). First, and most important, never give your password to anyone who is requesting it by email. Don’t login to any web site to change your password or enter your current password on the request of anyone by email. If we feel your account has been compromised we’ll change your password for you. We’ll never email to ask you to do it.
You can read more about this kind of activity, called “phishing,” by going to the following URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phishing
Second, please make sure your password is strong enough to prevent someone from guessing it. If your username and password are the same, you’re a potential target for account hijacking. Your password should contain upper and lower case letters, numbers and some other character(s), such as symbols or punctuation. Here are a few examples of good and bad passwords.
GOOD passwords
————–
M9ADu%3wQ! (good)
NtiL@e_D5o1sig (even better – more characters)
BAD passwords
————-
1234 (one of the most commonly used and easily guessed passwords)
spaniel (a word in the dictionary)
Please check your password here:
https://howsecureismypassword.net/
If your password strength is not rated “strong” or “best,” it should be changed immediately!
If you have ANY reason to believe that someone has guessed your password, please call us to change it immediately.
Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003
/in Email, FAQ's/by ConnectNCThese directions are intended for web hosting customers.
1. In Microsoft Outlook, select Tools and then E-mail Accounts
2. On the E-mail Accounts wizard window, select “Add a new e-mail account” and click the Next button.
3. For your (incoming) server type, select “POP3” and click the Next button.
4. On the Internet E-mail Settings window for POP3, enter your account information:
5. Click the Next button.
6. Now click the Finish button.
Note: Many ISPs do not allow outgoing mail through any but their own servers. It’s for this reason that we require you to check with your own ISP (cable, DSL provider) for the outgoing mail server address. Most Internet cafes or places where you can get free wireless access don’t allow outgoing mail except through webmail.
Phishing Attempts
/in Email, FAQ's/by ConnectNCThere’s been a recent influx of phishing attempts against our subscribers. If you receive a message like the one below, please delete it immediately! We will NEVER send any such messages to our subscribers. In addition, please do not ever send your login and password to ANYONE, including us. We will not request it by email.
Go to our home page to login to webmail
Why I’ll never send confidential email to anyone at AOL
/in Email, FAQ's/by ConnectNCAOL has something they call an Email Feedback Report. ISPs can register with AOL so they’ll be notified any time an email message is reported as spam. Unfortunately for the sender, the entire contents of the message are left intact for the ISP to review. The Email Feedback Report protects the identity of the recipient, but not the sender. Therefore, any message reported to AOL as spam (either rightly or wrongly) gets sent to the sender’s ISP.
What does this potentially mean? It means that a sender’s love notes, racist or sexist jokes and personal and business information are revealed to the sender’s ISP if that message is reported as spam.
We try to inform our customers when a message has been returned to us by AOL. In MOST of the cases, the sender reports back that the recipient did NOT (either intentionally or accidentally) mark their message as spam. Therefore, we’re making the assumption that there’s some flaw in AOL’s mail system that tags messages as spam in error.
Because we see several of these a week, my own personal policy is to never send anything I would want to have kept confidential to people with AOL email addresses.
I just wanted to pass this along so people will be aware and take steps to maintain their privacy.
Someone used my email address to send spam!
/in Email, FAQ's/by ConnectNCThis is a common situation these days. Malicious code has been developed to allow spammers to distribute their junk mail a variety of ways.
In the old days, we’d tell people just to be careful about posting their email addresses on web sites or newsgroups. Today, all it takes is an infected machine on which your email address is saved in an address book!
In order to combat spam, it’s now important for all computer users to keep their machines secured using the latest security software and by making sure operating system updates are done. Sometimes even this is not enough, since modern coders can defeat most commercially available Internet Security applications. Why can’t they use their powers for good instead of evil?
Be careful about designating email addresses or domains as trusted. Many spam filters, including our own, allow users to whitelist specific email addresses or entire domains. Imagine what could happen if you whitelisted the entire hotmail.com domain? That means anyone sending you a message with a return address from hotmail.com is going to get past the spam filter. Unfortunately, you can no longer whitelist your OWN email address! Spammers are sending junk mail to you with your own return address!
What’s a person to do? Make sure your security software is up to date. If you haven’t installed anything, please call ConnectNC to have a tech perform a security scan on your system and install your software. If everyone maintained good system security, we’d go a long way towards eliminating spam that comes from infected machines.
Last, but not least, never, ever buy from a spammer. They’re not sending you junk mail for fun. They’re doing it to make money. About ten years ago, one spammer told me that his employer made $30,000 in one day after they sent out unsolicited commercial email to a very large number of addresses. Their hosting and email accounts were cancelled, but it was well worth it to them. So, let’s try to make spamming an unprofitable venture. We should all agree that we’ll never buy anything that was promoted in an unsolicited message we received.
What are my incoming and outgoing mail server names?
/in Email, FAQ's/by ConnectNCFor @connectnc.com & @pinehurst.net email, please use the following mail servers.
For @connectnc.net email, please use the following mail servers.
For hosting clients, please use the following.
Verify Your Email Account – Is it Phishing?
/in Email, FAQ's/by ConnectNCIf you receive an email like this – YES it is PHISHING. Please delete it and never reply to an email like this. We have reported it so there is no need to forward it on to us but please do delete the phishing email immediately. Thank you!!
From: “Web Master-Help Team” <belindab@gam.co.za>
To: <users@pinehurst.net>
Sent: Friday, May 22, 2009 2:03 PM
Subject: VERIFY YOUR EMAIL ACCOUNT.
> VERIFY YOUR “PINEHURST.NET” EMAIL ACCOUNT.
>
> Dear pinehurst.net Email Account Owner,This message is from pinehurst.net
> messaging center to all pinehurst.net email account owners. We are
> currently
> upgrading our data base and e-mail account center. We are deleting all
> unused pinehurst.net email account to create more space for new accounts.
> To
> prevent your account from closing you will have to update it below so that
> we will know that it’s a present used account.
>
> CONFIRM YOUR EMAIL IDENTITY BELOW
>
> Email Username: ……………
> EMAIL Password: …………….
> Date of Birth: ……………..
> Country or Territory:………..
>
> Warning!!! Account owner that refuses to update his or her account within
> Seven days of reading this warning will lose his or her account
> permanently.
> Thank you for using pinehurst.net!
>
>
> Warning Code: VX2G99AAJ
>
>
> Thanks,
> pinehurst.net
> Team
Set up your iPhone email app
/in Email, FAQ's/by ConnectNCConnectNC users
Your login is your email address.
Your password is secret. Please never share that with anyone!
POP (incoming mail server) mail.connectnc.com
Port for POP is 110
IMAP (incoming mail server) mail.connectnc.com
Port for IMAP is 143
SMTP (outgoing mail server) mail.connectnc.com
Port for SMTP is 25
No SSL
Hosting customers
Your login is your email address
Your password is secret. Please never share that with anyone!
POP (incoming mail server) mail.yourdomain.com
SMTP (outgoing mail server) mail.yourdomain.com
No SSL
Password Policy
/in Dial Up, DSL, Email, FAQ's, Web Hosting/by ConnectNCUser Password Policy
For your protection, we require you to create passwords with a combination of alpha (mixed upper and lower case), numeric and special characters.
Passwords comprised entirely of common words in the dictionary, numbers only, names or identical to your ConnectNC userid are not acceptable.
New accounts with insecure passwords will be disabled until the insecure password is changed.
Bad Passwords:
Good Passwords:
Remember, if your password is identified by someone else, your Internet access account can be used to deface a web site or engage in other malicious activity. This isn’t only for your protection, it’s to protect our entire network and all of our customers!
If you have trouble thinking up a secure password, you can generate strong passwords online at http://www.safepasswd.com/ or here https://my.norton.com/extspa/idsafe?path=pwd-gen#
Please read more here: https://connectnc.com/clients/knowledgebase/128/Using-Strong-Passwords.html
My email keeps saying invalid username or password
/in Email, FAQ's/by ConnectNCIf you have more than one device checking your @connectnc.com, @pinehurst.net emails at the same time, the device which logged into your account first has locked your email box during that time. Either shut off the second device or set the email check times to be at separate intervals. This happens frequently with devices like ipads, Droids, iphones or other email devices, if you also have your main computer logging on and checking at the same time.