In the last few days, Opera received complaints and notifications regarding some emails sent to random people on behalf of the Norway-based company. These emails, bearing fake signatures, contained malicious software that was installed on people's computers as soon as they chose to read what the Opera staff wanted to notify them of.

Seeing as how some were misled by the messages, the company decided to advise all its users to avoid any breaking news as well as celebrity or accident related emails coming from unknown senders or from unsolicited sources. To avoid getting infected after reading said emails, meant to gain people's trust by making use of the brand name, users are advised to remove the default signature from their Opera mail client.

Four easy steps are enough to avoid falling into the trap, as the representatives of the company say. In order to change or remove the signature tab that misleads so many, users have to enter the "Visit Tool" menu and select the "Mail and Chat Accounts" option. Next, they have to choose, out of these two, only the email account, and click on the "Edit" button. From here on, they can either delete the default signature, or change it with a customized one that would not cause any more confusion.

The Opera team reassured users that they had nothing to do with the attacks. Although they keep the emails of their subscribers in a database to notify them when some new products are launched, the list was not lost or sold to any third party. The representatives said that the company was the one to be affected the most by spammers. "These attacks trespass on our brand and undermine the trust we have worked hard to build with both Opera users and non-Opera users around the Web. We take this seriously, and hope this notice will help raise greater awareness of and vigilance against these attacks."