Should I be worried?

[Colin Bearfield]

Suddenly, yesterday and this morning, I have seen appearing on screen
a message whose heading is Security Alert. Even though I am not
attempting to use the Internet, the message goes on to say "You are
about to view pages over a secure connection", and also "Any
information you exchange with this site cannot be viewed by anyone
else on the web".

When I click OK the message continues, telling me that there is a
problem with the site's security certificate.

I am worried because this is a new experience, and I have a host of
e-mails this morning purporting to be from MicroSoft relating to
security patches. I don't want to run any attachments until I know
what's going on.

I am running XP Pro and am on broadband guarded by a Linksys BEFSR41
router, firewall on by default.

Also, again beyond my experience, I have some e-mails saying that a
virus was detected in a message and has been destroyed. The message
tells of "Sophos Anti Virus plugin running on Communigate mail server.
How worried should I be?

Colin

 

[Bill]

Suddenly, yesterday and this morning, I have seen appearing on screen
a message whose heading is Security Alert. Even though I am not
attempting to use the Internet, the message goes on to say "You are
about to view pages over a secure connection", and also "Any
information you exchange with this site cannot be viewed by anyone
else on the web".

When I click OK the message continues, telling me that there is a
problem with the site's security certificate.

I am worried because this is a new experience, and I have a host of
e-mails this morning purporting to be from MicroSoft relating to
security patches. I don't want to run any attachments until I know
what's going on.

I can't help with the other stuff, but do not open any of the so called
Microsoft Patches, they contain worms, virus's or whatever (someone'll tell
us which!).

Bill