The Security Mentor

Spammers have long been trying to trick you by making ads look personal. I have an old email account with a made-up name. Pretend it's "mammogram". I get spam there with subject lines like "for my old friend mammogram".

Now spam has been cross-bred with spyware and their illegitimate child sends you email customized with personal information which it steals from your computer. Email security vendor MessageLabs reports that they've seen this happening. It's just now starting to catch on.

Protect yourself from spyware by switching browsers and running AdAware and Spybot Search&Destroy. And be aware that before long you may get spam that seems to know personal details about you.