Don’t be a victim! – How to avoid being Phished

slavezero — Mon, 04 May 2009 13:42:25 +0000

Nowadays, internet technology made it to the point that it is easily accessible by everyone. I myself access some of my important accounts through internet… like banking, paying bills, communication with my loved ones here and abroad. Though generally, it made our lives easy and account accessible anywhere, we can’t deny that thieves, hackers and criminals found another way to invade our privacy and personal accounts. With so many people having access to the internet these people have found a way to take advantage of this technology and separate us from our money. The internet crosses so many international boundaries and criminals can operate from basically anywhere theres a computer with access on the internet thats why its almost impossible to get those criminals. Phishing is just one of the many schemes used by criminals to stole money online.

I have a friend who once became a victim of this. She log on to a fake e-gold site and poof! suddenly all her funds in her account was transfered into an unknown account. This is called PHISHING. Phishing is a scam method wherin crooks sends out fake email in order to try and get valuable information on its victim, it is usually private information or financial record. they pretend to come from a well known bank, tell you that someone has changed your password or that your account will be terminated if you don’t confirm your details, and give you a link to click on.

If you you fall into their scam, you will be directed to a false website where they use to collect information you entered ad alter will be used to log in to your bank account or credit card and steal your hard earned money. In some case the crooks used your private information and used your whole identity to apply for fake loans. Before you know it your whole credit and financial history is ruined in a matter of hours.

Fortunately there are things you can do to avoid being phished.

No matter how genuine it looks the most important thing you should do is to NEVER respond to an email that appears to come from your financial institution. If you have to log on to your account, do not use the link included in the mail. Open a new browser, and type the URL manually.
If you have doubt, contact your bank (don’t use the bank phone number listed on the mail), ask them if the mail you received is legitimate.
Never click on any links or urls in the mails, don’t reply, don’t acknowledge.
Delete the suspected mail as fast as possible
When visiting websites be very cautious in giving out private informations and check if the site is secure.

Be aware also that phishing isn’t just limited to financial institutions. Phishing scams can also disguise as mails from well-known stores. They will give you a special offer just to click on the link. If you click on the link you will end up at their website not the store and will steal your information. Before you click anything and If you happen to be interested on that particular item or deal being offered it will be better to contact the store and seek assistance on the particular deal.

If you receive such scams it’s always a good idea to notify the company that appears on the mail. You can notify scams to paypal via spoof@paypal.com or you can report to the Internet Crime Complaint Center, although this mainly deals with the more threatening and widespread phishing scams.

Protecting your account – Choosing the best Password

slavezero — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 15:03:05 +0000

The Internet has really come a long way and it changed the ways things are done. Transactions such as payments for purchases, banking, transferring of files and other documents, and checking for messages are done online. As the internet technology advances so are the number of thieves adopting to the newest technology and developing their techniques to crack down sensitive info such as password. Most of the time, the account owner is the one to blame for his hacked password because he is not taking the necessary safety precautions to protect his account and his password are not strong enough to safeguard their account against hackers.

Choosing the best and strong password is always the best way of securing your account against hackers. Here are some tips to safeguard your passwords and withstand any crack attempt on your account.

Don’t use a password that is in the dictionary, even the foreign ones. There are lots of softwares for cracking passwords and it can be done in seconds that also means taht your account can be gone in 60 seconds or less.

Don’t use passwords that are associated with your maiden name, the place of yourbirth, your Social Security number, your children’s names, and phone numbers. It is a good idea to mix upper case and lower case characters and other allowed symbols like “hPld78j4″ in creating your password. This will be hard to crack and will it take a long time before a long time for a hacker to guess your password and will most likely to leave and go to his next target. Make sure that the password you use is easy to remember, associate it with any easy to remember words, dates, name or place.

Keep any record of your password offline. You can save your passwords to a CD or Flashdrive or any portable device. But placing your password record into a cd or any storage or portable device doesn’t mean your password is safe, record your password but don’t write all the characters, encrypt some of the characters for example your password is “SaFety125″ write in this in this way “S*F***1*5″ so just in case you lost your device where your password is located people will not be able to use it to hack your account.

Don’t use password on all your accounts. As much as possible use different password for every account.

Don’t use passwords that are commonly use like “123456789″

You can use a password generating and auto-filling software. This will prevent keyloggers from getting your password.

Your password is the secret key to your secured internet/computer account. Make sure that your key can really secure your account.

PCTechNotes :: PC Tips, Tricks and Tweaks » thieves

Don’t be a victim! – How to avoid being Phished

Protecting your account – Choosing the best Password