DNSChanger - Too sexy for the news to pass up

I was poised to send a warning around to a long list of friends and colleagues about the doomed Monday when the internet would no longer work because of DNSChanger.  Even Rob Pegoraro advised spreading the word about this, albeit with the suitable caveat, "But hold the exclamation points." http://news.discovery.com/tech/dns-changer-fbi-warning-july-9-doomsday-120426.html.  Seeing how small the estimated infection was here in the States, I decided not to launch my missive.  

But the tag line about folks not being able to access the internet was too good a news item to pass up.  So not to say it's not a serious thing, but in terms of the actual threat it was promoted a bit over the top by CNN and even the venerable PBS News Hour.  Not surprisingly, describing the actual impact as underwhelming surely understates things.  http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2406855,00.asp

Probably the greater threat comes from the ever increasingly elegant phishing emails.  Only today did I receive an email that looked completely as if from my bank.  First clue is that my number wasn't visible in the field where it should have been.  Second, is that a link that said it was to the bank site was actually to another web site entirely.   So take away:  whenever there is a link in an email from a commercial or business contact, in your mail client hover over the link and be sure it isn't actually a hyperlink to an entirely different website - that is the modus operandi of many of the phishing or spear phishing emails ("spear phishing" refers to the specific ones pretending to come from a trusted financial source).

And to repeat one good email precaution.  If you are using an email client like Mail (Mac OS) or Outlook, turn off the automatic display of remote images in html messages.  In Mail (Mac OS), this in Preferences/Viewing.  In Outlook, I believe it's in Tools/Options and under the Security Tab.  In both programs, it's easy in a specific email to load the html images once you're satisfied the email is from a known source and you would like to see the window dressing.