Cablone Intenet Scam - Beware!

This morning I received an email (supposedly from Cableone) saying that my email settings (POP3 and SMTP) had been changed.   Of course, my initial reaction was one of alarm.  I didn't know if somebody had hacked my email account or if Cableone was making changes. Below is a copy of the email I received.

SMTP and POP3 servers for myemail@cableone.net mailbox are changed. Please carefully read the attached instructions before updating settings.

http://groups.google.com/group/forrestgump33/web/setup.zip

Then I took a closer a look at the web link (URL) in the message.  Of course, I couldn't figure out at first what "Google Groups" had to do with my cableone email .... but then I took a closer a look.  If you read it carefully, you'll spot the word, "forrestgump" ... which let me quickly identify the email message as a hoax.

Another big tipoff is that if you look at the last bit of the email link, you see "setup.zip"  - that is a huge clue that this is a scam.  If you click this link, it will download some type of executable file to your computer ... most likely a virus or malicious program of some sort.

So this is one email you definitely want to ignore and delete ASAP!  Hoepfully the explanation above will also help you better identify these type of hoaxes and scams in the future.