A hazard of running a website is that your domain name can be 'spoofed' (faked) by spammers and viruses, who use it as the 'from' address on their email messages.

 

That's happened to paulspages.co.uk, and as a result, you may get emails claiming to come from  'support@paulspages.co.uk', 'webmaster@paulspages.co.uk', and so on. Subjects include 'You have successfully updated your password' and 'Important Notification'.

 

THESE EMAILS ARE FAKE, and many carry viruses. I haven't sent them (and they haven't come from my computer), but unfortunately there's nothing I can do to stop them, as it's very easy to fake someone else's address in the 'return address' field of an email.

 

I don't do bulk mailings from paulspages.co.uk, and I don't use names such as 'webmaster' on any emails I do send. If you register for SudokuXP, then you'll get an individual welcome email, but it won't come from any of the addresses mentioned above. To date there have been no group emails sent out to all SudokuXP members. Genuine messages to SudokuXP members will never contain attachments.

 

My advice if you receive anything claiming to come from paulspages.co.uk is to treat it with caution, and scan it for viruses (in fact these days it's best to scan all emails for viruses). Don't open any attachments unless you're expecting an attachment from me. It could be genuine, of course, but if it mentions things like 'temporarily suspending your account', then it isn't.

 

Paul Stephens

January 2006