Spammers

Julieatp2U's Comment

Written on: 21/11/2011

Dear Sir / Madam

After registering with Pharmacy2U, a very small number of customers have received unwanted and unsolicited emails offering pharmacy products. We fully understand why these emails may be inconvenient, concerning and perhaps distressing. We can categorically assure you that Pharmacy2U does not sell our customer email addresses to any third party company, especially those advertising such drugs. It is actually illegal in the UK to advertise these kind of prescription only medicines, and we have been working with the our solicitors and the Royal Pharmaceutical Society to have these sites banned from selling to the UK. Pharmacy2U takes significant measures to ensure customer data is protected, including the use of multiple antivirus and firewall solutions, encryption of key data and network design which is tested by specialist security companies.

The most likely cause of these emails is that you have programs which installed themselves on your computer that contain "Spyware". Spyware software is often installed by very devious means and most users will not know if it has been installed. This software can identify what Internet sites you are viewing as well as your email address, and send this information back to the Spyware originators
and to other people who then send you spam emails. We have had a very small number of customers (single figure) who have reported this issue. Upon our advice they ran an anti-spyware utility and discovered their computer did have malicious software installed on it and was sending out information about them to 3rd parties who in turn were sending them spam emails.

If you are receiving such emails relating to Pharmacy products, we hope the following information is of help. Please note this information is the opinion of Pharmacy2U Ltd only and as such is provided on an "as-is" basis without guarantee or warranty. We are unable to accept responsibility for computer issues arising from the use of any third party software. If you are unsure how to proceed we recommend you contact the company that supplied your computer for assistance.

Anti-Spyware
We strongly recommend you download and run ANTI SPYWARE software, some of which are free of charge. Technical reviews indicate that no single piece of software detects all the different versions of spyware, and it is recommended that you install and run at least 2 different ones. The following website provides links and information about anti-spyware tools.

http://www.firewallguide.com/spyware.htm

The ones we recommend are:

Ad-Aware - http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/
Spybot Search and Destroy - http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html
Microsoft (previously Giant) Anti Spyware - http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/default.mspx

Internet Browser
The majority of people use Internet Explorer which is acknowledged to have some security issues, particularly in relation to the running of unwanted programs (through a technology called ActiveX). We recommend the use of an alternative browser such as Firefox or Opera for daily use. A small percentage of websites are not written to internet standards and will not display within these browsers.

Firefox - http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/
Opera - http://www.opera.com/

Ensure Windows Patches Are Installed
Microsoft provides a free update website for security "patches". Visit http://www.windowsupdate.com and follow the instructions to install all "critical updates". These will be slow if you are not on a broadband connection. We also very strongly recommend you install and run the following types of program on your computer and we have provided some links below. These are either free or low cost (between £15-30)

Virus Scanner
These help prevent viruses and some spyware

http://www.grisoft.com/us/us_dwnl_free.php (free)
http://www.free-av.com/ (free)
http://uk.mcafee.com/
http://www.symantec.com
http://www.f-secure.com
http://www.kaspersky.com
http://www.itforcharities.co.uk/reviews/ezavirus.htm (information site)

Personal Firewall
This helps prevent hackers accessing your computer and placing programs on it. If you have installed Windows XP Service pack 2 then the in-built firewall will be turned on.

Zone Alarm - http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/company/products/znalm/freeDownload.jsp
Agnitum Outpost - http://www.agnitum.com/download/outpost1.html (click NO when it asks you if you want to upgrade the first time it runs - this downloads the 30 day Pro version)

Anti-Spam
Your email provider may be able to provide you with anti-spam services which filter out spam at their servers before it reaches you. Please contact them directly. Alternatively you can change your email client software to one which you can add your own filters on your local computer. We recommend Thunderbird which is free of charge.

http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird/

If you continue to have problems after carrying out the above, please contact [email protected] and we will be happy to provide further information and assistance.