They say that death and taxes are inevitable, but I think you can add disaster scams to the list as well. When the news about the fires in Southern California broke it was only a matter of time before sewer-dwelling vermin would move in to attempt to inflict more misery. Floating on top of the sewage appeared an email titled “NEW: A second civilian dies in wildfires, U.S. Forest Service says”. Relatively benign, this one simply wanted to sell me Viagra and Cialis.

The real scam artists will never rise to the level of spammers though. We are going to see at least two types of malicious attacks. One attack is to control your computer and the other is to steal money. There will be, and may already be, emails with sensational subject lines about the fires. The messages will promise pictures or videos of the horror. There will either be attachments or links to files. If run, the files will provide remote control of your computer and will provide access to all of the information on your computer. I just did a series of blogs about bots. This is what they are up to.

The more insidious attack will be scumbags posing as charities. There will be websites for fake charities, emails soliciting funds for fake charities, and even people soliciting donations in person. This happens with all disasters – it’s as predictable as death and taxes.

Never donate to a charity you are not familiar with. There are plenty of legitimate charities to choose from. Never give cash to someone claiming to be representing a charity. A badge or other document is very easy to forge. Do not respond to an email claiming to be from a charity, even if you know them. Often times these emails lead to illegitimate web sites, rather than the real web site of the charity.

If you want to help victims of any disaster then initiate the contact with the charity of your choice. This will ensure that the money directed toward helping people does not go to the low-life scammers who not only are stealing from generous people, but from the victims as well.

Randy Abrams is the Director of Technical Education for ESET LLC