Terrible email from Lloyds

Racheya

As long as I could confirm the email was legitimate I'd much rather get them emailed than cutting down trees just to post them out when they end up in the bin within minutes anyway.

grumbler

Archi_Bald wrote: »

it's 3 PDF files, ...
There is just about zero reason or justification for a bank to send anything in email attachments.

I am pretty sure pdf files are absolutely safe.
So are many other common formats, if not most.

In fact, very few formats can be dangerous. Mainly it's exe (including self-extracting zip) and doc/xls (if you enable macroses that are disabled by default).

ETA: it's a norm for, say, insurance and travel companies to send pdf attachments. Why do banks have to be different?

Archi_Bald

I agree, I don't want reams of paper by snail mail . That is why I registered for online statements and correspondence.

I did not, however, register for receiving emails with attachments where I would need to to determine whether the email is genuine or not. We all know that faked emails can be very sophisticated these days, and any email that purports to be from my bank and has an attachment, or asks me to click on a link, immediately gets marked highly suspect by me.

It is unreasonably of a bank to expect the general public to be able to determine whether an email purporting from a bank is genuine, especially if it has attachments. There is no reason why the bank should not be using the secure messaging that is available on all accounts.

Archi_Bald

grumbler wrote: »

I am pretty sure pdf files are absolutely safe.
So are many other common formats.

In fact, very few formats can be dangerous. Mainly it's exe, zip and doc/xls (if you enable macroses that are disabled by default).

Any file, including PDF files, can contain viruses. That's why every child knows these days that you should never open any attachments unless you are 100% sure who they are from, and that you trust the sender.

Perhaps google "virus in pdf", but here's a random one for you: http://www.enfocus.com/en/support/knowledge-base/can-a-pdf-document-contain-a-virus?Page=30.

Before you say it: you cannot rely 100% on your AV, even if you have the latest version of it, to catch a virus in an attachment.

The only 100% safe way of not catching a virus from an attachment is to never open one. Lloyds can significantly help by not sending any attachment in the first instance.

dj1471

grumbler wrote: »

I am pretty sure pdf files are absolutely safe.
So are many other common formats.

In fact, very few formats can be dangerous. Mainly it's exe (including self-extracting zip) and doc/xls (if you enable macroses that are disabled by default).

Completely untrue. Almost every common format (including PDFs) can be exploited in some way, since they can include scrips/macros/unexpected executable code etc.

Herbalus

Hmmm. Interesting. I didn't know that a PDF can contain a virus. I find that quite worrying.

But personally I have a mac, which are unaffected by these types of virus. I also use the spacebar function (shows a snapshot of a file without opening it) to view files before I open them. I suppose that's not much help if you have Windows though.

grumbler

Well, I stand corrected then.....

Archi_Bald

Another serious nasty:

not forgetting the old standby of double dating the file

so YOU see document.pdf - which is windows default setting of just the ONE extension on show

whereas in reality the beastie is actually set as document.pdf.exe

so you click on what you BELIEVE is a .pdf, and end up running the executable of whatever nastiness was added, and lets be fair, if it has been double bagged, it isn't going to be pretty

maas

I've been caught by something similar, an MP3 file. Well thats what I thought it was.

It looked like an MP3 file by its Icon (and title) so I double clicked on it expecting Winamp to fire up but I got an Eset virus checker message telling me that Artist - Song.exe is potentially a dangerous file!

Crafty gets

To be fair I am normally smart with this but when its in the same folder as all your music with the same icon...

B_G_B

I would not suggest for one moment that Archi would paste a dodgy link on here but……..

Archi_Bald wrote: »

Perhaps google "virus in pdf", but here's a random one for you: http://www.enfocus.com/en/support/knowledge-base/can-a-pdf-document-contain-a-virus?Page=30.

……. come on folks. Own up. Who has clicked on it?