Wow. Wow. Wow. We really did say that word three times when one of our co-workers showed us an email he got from Time Warner Cable.
The email claimed Time Warner found his home computer was infected. The exact words the company used - "detected signs of bot net traffic being transmitted from a device connected to the cable modem." Sounds scary and a little fishy too.
For all the scam emails we see, all of us in the 2 Wants to Know office were trying to figure out if this was real or not. Usually we can spot it at first glance then we research to confirm our gut feeling. But this...
This Time Warner Cable email made us do a double take. It looks so real....and makes your heart race.... "We're notifying customers whose computers are found to be communicating servers controlled by criminals."
So we'll walk you through what I did to figure out if it was real or not so you can do the same. We started by looking at the "from" email address. In this case it's twcable.com That sounds legit. But we Googled it to be sure. It came back with all Time Warner Cable sites. So that's a check for "real."
But you're not done. There's a link included in the email. Don't click that. Just hover over it. It's identical to what you see in the email itself. So that's a check for "real."
Last tip - get out your bill or go online and find a customer service number and call the company. Ask them if the email's legit.
So the email's real. What if you get it? Do what it says. Run your anti-virus software to get rid of the bot.