SPAMMERS are sending e-mail messages with a subject line that predicts the death of the Internet.
This is their newest method of spreading harmful viruses.
Such e-mail messages are a hoax, and chances are they contain attachments that can potentially harm your computer system if you download them.
Typically, these e-mail messages contain an attention-grabbing subject line to pique the reader's curiosity.
According to the latest e-mail messages, the Internet will meet its end in 2012 because "every significant Internet provider around the globe is currently in talks with access and content providers to transform the Internet into a television- like medium".
And when that happens, fans of the World Wide Web will end up being "forced to pay to visit selected corporate websites".
International computer software company, Symantec, sent out a warning last week to alert Internet users about this new hoax.
Apart from predicting the death of the Internet, the e-mail messages also come along with an attachment named "doc.pdf", Symantec warned.
The attachment contains a virus which lowers the security settings of a computer, leaving it vulnerable to hackers who can steal confidential information such as passwords.
According to Symantec, the origins of the e-mail messages have been traced to countries such as China, Belgium and Italy.
In a monthly report published early this month, Symantec estimated that spam e-mail accounts for 80 per cent of all e-mail, up from 56 per cent in 2006.
Those figures are hardly surprising, said Mr Chan Kin Chong, chairman of the Security and Privacy Standards Technical Committee, an Internet security interest group here.
The 37-year-old said that spam e-mail is "very common" but there are various ways to avoid being a victim of malicious spam.
He said: "Avoid publishing your e-mail address on the Internet because automated programs created by spammers are trained to recognise the format of e-mail addresses.
"Avoiding spam is all about tricking these automated programs.You must be smarter."
