In today's economy, who couldn't use a tip on a hot stock? Be warned: When the tip comes unsolicited in your e-mail inbox, it's probably a scam.

One of the most common forms of spam these days is the "pump-and-dump" scam. According to the United States Security and Exchange Commission (SEC), spammers send 100 million of these e-mail messages per week!

See examples of stock spam at the SEC Web site.

How pump-and-dump scams work

Spammers buy stock in a small company, often with stock prices of only a few dollars per share. Then they send out millions of e-mail or text messages across the globe to encourage recipients to buy that stock. These messages can even be disguised as confidential information that was sent to the recipient by mistake.

When enough people buy the stock, the price of the stock goes up. When the price is high enough the spammers sell their shares. The price goes back down, and people who purchased the stock as a result of the tip suffer.

It can be difficult to find out who's behind pump-and-dump e-mail scams. That's because spammers can take control of large numbers of computers and turn them into zombies that can work together as powerful "botnets" to send them out. For more information, see Zombies and botnets: Help keep your computer under control.

What you can do to avoid pump-and-dump scams

·          Use spam filtering technology. For more information, see Help keep spam out of your inbox.

·          Don't make investment decisions based on anonymous e-mail or text messages you receive.

·          Don't open attachments in unsolicited e-mails. Stock spam usually comes as an image or as a PDF attachment, which are common tactics spammers use to avoid being caught by a spam filters.

·          Use an ISP or e-mail provider that has implemented Sender ID Framework, a technical solution to detect and block spoofed e-mail. Windows Live Hotmail and Exchange Server 2003/2007 are two of the dozens of solutions that support this technology.

Microsoft releases security updates on the second Tuesday of every month. This month Microsoft released nine security updates for Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Office, Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player, Visual Basic, Microsoft Virtual PC for Mac, and Microsoft Office for Mac.

Get the updates

If you have automatic updating turned on, your computer will automatically update and install these security updates.

If you don't have automatic updating turned on, you can download the updates at the Microsoft Update Web site. Make sure you both download and install the updates.

Read more about the updates for August

To find out more information about the updates, see Microsoft security updates for August.

Get technical information about the updates

For technical details, visit Microsoft TechNet.

It's that time of year again—back to school. And that probably means more computer time for kids who've been outside this summer.

If you're a parent and you don't have family safety settings on your computer, now is a perfect time to choose the software that's right for your family.

Parental control software includes Internet filters that you can use to choose the content you want your children to see and help block the content you don't. Some parental control software also includes monitoring tools, tools to set time limits for computer use, and even settings to help protect your computer from accidental system changes.

Microsoft offers several different kinds of parental control software. See the chart and links below to learn more.