I hope that most of my readers are smart enough not to have to be told this, but if you get an authentic-looking, official-looking email from Microsoft telling you to install the attachment with the latest security updates, DON'T DO IT! I've gotten a couple of them in the last day or so (and I'm sure my filters have trapped many more).

Never do it. Microsoft doesn't send security updates out by email--you have to (and should, on at least a weekly basis, apparently) go to their site to do it.

Fortunately, I read about this about ten minutes before I got one last night. Mine even had the interesting gimmick of a warning at the top, stating that a "potential virus attachment" had been removed from the email, and that I could read more details by opening the attached .txt file. Pretty clever, hoaxing not only MS but my firewall as well. I wonder how many people who knew the MS message was faked will fall for the firewall warning thinking *that* is legit?

"Weakly" is about right.

(I can afford to be smug: I run Linux and won't have a Micrososft product in my house.)

Running XP over an 'always-on' connection (cable modem), you can get automatic download and notification from Microsoft of all critical updates. Very convenient and, as far as I can tell, perfectly safe.

Normally, I'm pretty disgusted by MS's Hotmail email service, but I feel so much better now that MS emails me its latest security information and clearances. The only problem is that they send me a lot of copies and fill up my 1Mb limit very quickly. I guess there's some problems with the email link from Redmond maybe due to those linix terrorists. Couldn't they get more organized and send me just one update? And maybe make it a lot smaller?