kendall -

I was not meaning to cast aspersions on you or your input; but the problems, especially with phishing attacks cannot be attributed to "inexperience."

Microsoft scans approximately 300,000,000 computers each and every month, with their "Malware Remover." This scan is limited to those who "volunteer" for it, and includes a wide cross-spectrum of users of all skill and experience levels. The scan is ONLY for currently common malware forms/versions and ignores anything that does not CRITICALLY affect operation of the computers.

They typically find more than 60% of all machines infected with CRITICAL and DAMAGING malware, and recent reports have found approximately 15% of machines each infected with more than 50 different infections on the same machine.

A very large percentage of these machines are on corporate networks, with excellent AntiVirus, effective Firewalls, anti-spam at the "front door," reasonably available advice and support from mostly competent(?) IT professionals; and are as close to being "invulnerable" as is reasonably possible, with the ONLY possible means of infection being the operator who "just can't resist that one click to see what it is."

Infections of the kinds found are also probably more common on networked machines (at universities and businesses) because after the IDIOT clicks, it's so cute (s)he sends it to nine-dozen others so they can click too.

An individual new user does face a tremendous task in getting up to speed on what's safe and what isn't. A ten-minute talk with the salesman who set you up should be enough to get you going, although the value of the assistance one gets can be extremely variable.

That you reported what you heard about this one threat does show an awareness of the kinds of things that need watching. That you've read the thread enough to be (unintentionally) offended indicates you're making an effort.

Welcome to the minority party, and keep at it.

Be aware too, that after a period of experience, many people start to think "I'm smart enough to peek and not get hurt." (Becaue they're now "experienced users.") Many phishing scams flatter the ego to elicit this effect, and continued appearance of the attempts means they're being much too successful.

John