Phishing: Examples and its prevention methods

Phishing is a form of fraud designed specifically to steal your identity. Usually, a phishing email will have a fake story that’s designed to lure you into clicking a link or button in the email or calling a phone number. The sender is trying to steal your identity by tricking you into revealing your password or other personal information.




Examples and Preventions:

1.You cannot think that an email is valid based on the sender’s email address. It’s pretty easy to alter and is not an indication of whether the email is real or not. Hence, just keep yourself up to date with the latest news and information on phishing in order to spot the fake and the differences.




2.Some phishing emails will ask about your account numbers and passwords. However, many companies or financial institutions have mentioned that they will never ask you for the personal information such as IDs, passwords and credit card numbers in any email. Thus, just remember to guard your privacy.




3.Sometimes, phishing emails will come with threats or warnings that your account is in danger of being deactivated if you don’t confirm your user information. Therefore, if you are in doubt then just call your customer service representative before you do anything foolhardy.




4.Many phishing emails have links that look valid, but send you to fraudulent sites instead. Therefore you better open a new browser window, then type the actual URL of the company or financial institution's website and log in to your account directly instead of clicking on those links provided by the email that typically ask for credit card and account numbers.


Useful tips:
Sometimes the easiest way to check is to enter a WRONG password. The fake site will accept it, and then you’re usually redirected to a page that says they’re having technical difficulties, so could you please log in back and check later?


Related links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phishing
http://images.google.com.my/images?hl=en&q=phishing+examples&gbv=2&aq=0&oq=Phishing+example

A review on a post of Internet Security from My E-commerce blog

Based on a review on the post “Favorite passwords used online”, it indicates that most of the online users always like to choose a password which is short and easy to remember. However, the password that they have chosen might not be secured. Sometimes, it can be easily stolen or used by unauthorized person without the users’ knowledge. Yet the users still tend to do so. The reason why they want to choose password which is short and easy to remember is because they want to avoid any unnecessary problems which will be faced to them. For example the problem is forgot the password. Whenever the online users forget the password, they are required to request with the related website to send the password again to their email address. Though, not all online companies will have such services. Thus, online user will prefer to create a new account.

Online users are advised to use more complicated passwords when creating their account. It is safer to create a password that is longer than 8 characters with unique symbols or capital letters in between the passwords. For example, a password of “longlong123” can be changed to “lonGloNg@123” so that it is not easy to be traced by hackers. Moreover, online users are recommended not to use same passwords on different accounts created. This is because whenever a lost of password happened, then the other accounts will be potentially lost too. Another way of better protection is to change password after some period of time. This can help to avoid the passwords being randomly tested by unauthorized users.

Although using or changing password is a way of safeguard, users shall aware of some disadvantages of these protections. For instance, frequently changes of passwords may lead the owner to forget their own passwords. At that time, complications can be happened and this is often not favored by any users. Moreover, users may mix up their passwords if they create too many “unique” passwords in different accounts. In some companies, random trying will result in block of account. Therefore, passwords owner must be aware of these limitations before creating excessive passwords.


Related link:
http://ecommerze.blogspot.com/search/label/Internet%20Security

How to safeguard our personal and financial data?

In today’s world, computer has been very important in our daily life. Almost everything surrounding us is computerized, and everyone around us is equipped with knowledge of information technology. Computer becomes necessarily important especially in working places. Works done by computer includes accounting, auditing, storing information of company, and sending information to related users. Due to the improvement in technology, computer crime becomes one of the ways for hackers to obtain unauthorized data without prior notice of the owner. Therefore, safeguarding our data in computer is the only way to prevent lost of data.

There are several ways to safeguard our data from unauthorized access by intruders. The most common ways that intruders use to steal data is to steal information in the sending process when we are trying to transfer our data to intended user. Therefore, encryption becomes one of the best ways to safeguard our data during the transferring process. When we send information through email, we can encrypt our email before sending to recipient, and the recipient will use decrypt software to read the information that we are trying to inform them. Encrypted email is done by transforming words to unreadable icons or shapes before sending, while decrypt software can help to scramble the icons back to the original words. By doing this, even the email is interrupt by intruders during the sending process, they will not be able to read the information.

Next, we can set up user names and passwords in our computers and office. These user names and passwords must not be accessible by anyone else, including close friends or colleagues. This is to prevent our data being unauthorized access by others when we are away from our keyboard. Besides that, we should set up different usernames and passwords in order to further protect our sensitive information. However, we must ensure that we must not forget our own usernames and passwords so that complications can be reduced to minimum. Changes in usernames and passwords after some period can also help to ensure that unauthorized users will not be able to access our information.



Besides that, we can also deploy firewall in our computer. The main purpose of firewall is to block unauthorized access while allowing authorized entry. It is a part of a computer system that can help to permit, deny, encrypt or decrypt access based on certain criteria. Firewall can help to block intruders from access into our computer through network, and they will require obtaining permission from us before accessing our personal and financial data.

Every computer users are fear of viruses. This is because viruses can be created by any virus writer to spread through network, computers or removable devices. Therefore, updated antivirus software shall be installed in every computer before the operating system is infected by any viruses. There is some free antivirus software available in the market, such as avast! antivirus and AVG scanner. Computer users also can purchase original antivirus software from retailers to obtain advanced protection against viruses, worms, and Trojans on disk, CDs, in email, and during browsing.



Last but not least, users of computer shall backup their data in different devices and locations especially important data. Whenever there is a lost of data, they will still have a backup copy to trace back the information. Users also advised not to store all data in one particular place so that they can minimize the effect of lost of data. Storing data in different devices also helps to diversify the risk of lost of data.

Related links:
http://www.aetna.com/members/safeguard_data.htm
http://www.ehow.com/how_2065985_safeguard-personal-information-work-computer.html?ref=fuel&utm_source=yahoo&utm_medium=ssp&utm_campaign=yssp_art
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firewall
http://www.consumersearch.com/antivirus-software/review

The threat of online security: How safe is our data?

Nowadays, people heavily relies on the internet by using computer. Increasingly developed technologies bring many benefits to people. However, there are some threats which will affect the safety of our data.

Firstly, computer crime is a criminal activity which occur in the network by using computer. Computer crimes have become high profile due to the high technologies that we are using now. It includes hacking, copyright infringement and so on. The data inside the computer or on the network is becoming unsafe since it can be unauthorized access or hacked by people. When the user's data is hacked, they can steal or destroy the data, and do illegal activity. It is very dangerous to user because the user's information is not protected and reliable.

Secondly, laptop is a portable computer device. It allows user can easily take to anywhere. Since it is capable of being carried or moved, it provides a chance to the laptop theft. Accodring to the FBI, losses due to the laptop theft more than $6.7 million dollars in year 2005. Another example will be given is the cases happened at Chicago. Two laptops had been stolen from the office of a public school. The laptops contain the information of teacher. The informaion might potentially been abused.

Thirdly, computer virus is also a harmful threats of data's safety. Virus is a program that can copy itself and infect a computer. Besides that, the virus can spread to another computer through internet, USB drive, hard disc and so on.

Addtionally, phishing is the criminally fraudulent process to obtain the private information of user via electronic communication. Normally phishing can be carried out through email or instant message. Furthermore, it will direct user to enter details at a fake website. The information could be misused by people and might bring the damage to the user. According to a research, it is estimated that 1.2 million computer users had suffered loss caused by phishing in United States between May 2004 and May 2005, totally approximately US$929 million.

In a nutshell, as the technologies are deveoping rapidly, it can help people in the daily life and also business world. Users must be clearly understood about the threats of online security and the effect of crucial damages caused by online security threats.


Related Links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_virus
http://ecommerze.blogspot.com/search?q=stolen+laptop
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phishing