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For the record... Date: Sat, 15 Aug 2009 06:55:18 -0300 (ADT) From: Chebucto Community Net Office <office@chebucto.ns.ca> To All Chebucto Community Net Users: This email is to alert all of our users to *NEVER* *EVER* give out your Chebucto Community Net passwords. We will *NEVER* send you an email to ask you for your passwords for any reason. We want to make this point very clear to our users. No email claiming to need your Chebucto Community Net passwords is real or legitimate. Not today, not tomorrow, not next week, not next year. NEVER! Criminals will send you emails claiming to represent Chebucto Community Net asking for your passwords and other personal information. They want passwords to gain access to your personal information, to use that information to steal money from people you know or you yourself, and finally to use your legitimate email address and your good name to send out thousands of spam emails to people all over the world. The criminals will try to trick you many different ways to send them your password. They will say they are system administrators resetting security systems, they will say that your account is over quota and you need to send them your password to reset the quota, they will say they need your password now, right away or they will shut down your account. They may even claim to be the police, needing your password to catch a crook. These are all lies trying to trick you into giving them access to your Chebucto account. You can expect to see this kind of scam email pop up from time to time as the criminals keep coming back with more and more ways to try to trick you. Any email asking you for your password will ALWAYS be a lie from criminals trying to steal from you and from us. Some of our users are vague on what their password is or why they need to protect it. They write their logins and passwords on their cheques. They give their passwords out when they are asked for their logins and they fall for scams asking them for their passwords. Chebucto Community Net, like all Internet Service Providers, uses a LOGIN, which is a name for a customer's account with us, and a PASSWORD, which is a SECRET that proves to us that the user trying to use our services is who they say they are. PASSWORDS ARE SECRET. They are like the key to your house. They are there for your protection and for our protection. When a scammer gets your password they get your past emails and your addressbook too. They might send a letter to your family saying they are you and need emergency money. The thousands of spam messages they send from your account get Chebucto mail blocked by spam filters at other providers, which affects all Chebucto users. Your personal information is stripped out from your emails and sold to other criminals around the world. The price tag for a user giving out their password to the criminals is very high, both for you the user and for the Chebucto staff, who have to clean up the mess made. As the criminals get more clever, we can expect to see more and more sly tricks to fool you into giving out your passwords to them. Don't be fooled! Chebucto Community Net Passwords 1. Chebucto Community Net will NEVER send out email asking you for your password. Any emails you see asking for passwords will ALWAYS be fake, no matter what they say. 2. Users who give out their passwords will have their access immediately suspended as soon as we find out. The user account may even be terminated depending on the circumstances. Users should consider themselves warned that failing to keep passwords secure will have serious consequences. 3. Any user who gives out their password a second time will have their account terminated without further notice and be banned from ever having a Chebucto account again. Good Password Policies 1. Pick a password that is not a dictionary word, that is eight characters long and that uses a mixture of numbers and letters. Avoid simple patterns like ABC123 or your phone number or postal code. Try to use lower and upper case letters. 2. If you write down your password, put it in a safe secure place, preferably locked up. 3. DO NOT GIVE OUT YOUR PASSWORD! IT IS A SECRET! 4. It is a very good idea to change your password from time to time. This can be done from the Chebucto Webmail service (click on Password on the top of the Webmail window when logged in) or with the g)password shortcut on the Chebucto text service (when in Lynx, type gpassword then hit Enter). Webmasters and Passwords Webmasters should be careful about site security and access. Criminals may try to get access with scam emails trying to trick you into giving them your passwords too. Access to web space can be used by criminals to host fraudulent scam websites such as fake bank websites or fake pharmacy sites. Webmasters using interactive features or publishing software are responsible for making sure the feature or software is kept updated and secure. There is an unfortunate tendency for webmasters to "hit and run" installing an interactive website then forgetting to update the site as security patches or updates come out. Criminals are constantly probing for out-of-date software that can be exploited to gain access to the website.
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