You probably know by now that scammers send all kinds of attachments within their e-mails, which, once open, could either infest your computer with viruses or download software that will access your files.
Recently, the scammers have started to send these items using well-known newspapers or magazines online. How?
Almost every real article you see on the Internet has a “Send to a friend” feature at the bottom, so when you get an e-mail from your local newspaper or from People Magazine you will probably be tempted to open the attachment, knowing they are a reputable media outlet. The scammers have forwarded you the article, but attached the virus or the software in the body of the message.
How to avoid: if the attachment is just the magazine’s webpage you are fine, but if it’s a different file (zip, Word, PDF) – ignore it.