Why Am I Getting Suspect Mail

Question

If imac Mountain Lion is so good at preventing antivirus and malware, why am I getting scam emails, ones that are telling me that a problem has been detected and that I should click a link to solve the problem? I never used to get these sort of emails when I had my Windows computer with antivirus and anti maware software installed.

Answer 1

As others have indicated, spam/scam emails are not viruses and depend for their success on naivety, gullibility or unawareness on the part of the recipient. Such emails range from those that require little more than a pulse and an IQ in double figures to recognise, to those that are very convincing and appear to be genuine. Previous posters have suggested various ways that you might be able to filter out at least some of such emails but, to borrow terms from the world of radar, there is a trade-off between the Probability of Detection (ie. the likelihood that a spam/scam email will be spotted and quarantine or deleted) and the False Alarm Rate (ie. the likelihood that a genuine email will be wrongly identified as spam/scam). The only way to stop all spam/scam emails is to stop all emails! If your Windows system never showed you a spam/scam email, then it is almost certain that it stopped some genuine ones as well - did you ever check your junk or quarantine folder? Personally, having been caught out by an occasional important genuine email being classified as junk, I leave all the filters on my ISP server open and simply delete junk after it has been downloaded to my Apple email. It takes very little time and gives me satisfaction that others can then have the benefit from all those mega-millions that just need their bank account details to be provided that the money can be transferred to them.