You may not be aware of it, but you can already be a victim of cybercrime. If you transact business online, there is a big chance that your software has already been hacked. Today, with various sophisticated malware, it is not very difficult for hackers to obtain personal information from you. One of the prevalent malware is Trojan. Last year, it was reported that a cyber crime organization obtained the passwords, usernames, and account numbers of thousands of bank accounts by using the Trojan malware.
How Trojan aids cyber criminals
Some people believe that Trojan is not as harmful as a virus or a worm. But contrary to this belief, Trojan can be just as dangerous, if not more. The serious danger lies when it is used by cyber criminals to hack information. To obtain information, the Trojan waits for the user to enter a specific URL and then it replaces the URL with a fake one. It then keeps the information that the user has encoded. What’s more, a Trojan cannot easily be detected by your typical anti-virus software. So you may not know it if your computer has already been infected with one.
Tips to avoid being hacked
Though Trojan can evade anti-virus software, it is still best that you install one and keep it constantly updated. You should also take extra care when dealing with spam email that asks for your private information. It’s vital that you avoid sending our your passwords and your bank account and credit card numbers through email. And if you want to visit the website of a financial or academic institution, type the URL directly instead of clicking some links.
Posted in: Email Security.
Tagged: Email Security
One of the most dangerous cyber crimes is email phishing. Phishing is an identity theft that occurs in the web. In this scam, a person is being lured to divulge some personal information by scammers who take the identities of reliable people and legitimate organizations. One of the factors that make phishing very dangerous is that the websites, email addresses, and the information that scammers provide look almost authentic. Another reason phishing is dangerous is that your anti-virus and firewall cannot detect phishing emails. Your anti-spam cannot also prevent these emails from entering your computer system because phishing emails do really appear legitimate.
The phishing bait
Initially, a target victim receives an email. The email claims to come from legitimate offices, such as academic institutions and financial institutions. If the email looks authentic and if the address seems credible, the unsuspecting victim easily falls for the bait that scammers set. The victim would then give away important information such as bank account numbers, email passwords, and credit card numbers.
Don’t be the next victim
Keeping a skeptical eye on every email that you receive is one of the basic things that you can do to avoid being the next phishing scam victim. If you receive an email from seemingly authentic institutions that ask you for some information, you have to go directly to the institution’s official website and make inquiries. Security experts also recommend that you read the email as plain text. When you have identified a phishing scam, you can report it to the Federal Trade Commission or to the insitution which the phishing mail spoofed.
Posted in: Stealth Email.
Tagged: Stealth Email
The US presidential election is over, so there’s no need for Obama to raise fund for his campaign, yet there are lots of people who keep on receiving emails containing solicitations for the National Democratic Committee. There are also those who have received emails advertising limited edition Obam shirts, mugs, and other “collectibles.”
Well, with the current economic crisis, receiving fraudulent emails such as these should not surprise you anymore. These emails are really a nuisance. For one, these emails eat up a lot of your time. Instead of going directly to yourimportant emails, you still have to deal with these kinds of irritating emails. Aside from this, opening some of these emails can put your computer at risk. For all you know, these emails carry malicious software or contain links to malicious sites.
How to get rid of fraud emails
If you are one of those who have received an email asking for donation for Obama or selling some products such as mugs and caps of the current US president, you don’t have to put up with these emails. There are ways by which you can avoid receiving these emails in the future.
One of the things that you should do is to activate your software’s anti-spam features. The anti-spam tool can block other messages from those senders. For those emails that are already in your mail box, you can mark them and decide if you want to retain or delete them. And the most important thing that you should keep in mind is to NEVER send a reply to the return address, because this may encourage the sender to send various other fraudulent emails to your account.
Posted in: Email.
Tagged: Email
Two years ago, a new and sophisticated spam started to spread in the Internet. This spam is called the “Piggyback spam.” This spam takes the form of a regular spam email. Similar to other forms of spam, this contains advertisement of products, but it also contains something else more dangerous. When you open the spam email, there are links to external sites. However, the links actually contain downloadable files. This files contain malware such as Trojan and Keylogger. The Piggyback spam also has the capacity to install spambot to your computer. The botnet that is responsible for this spam can actually disable your anti-virus software and remove rival spambots from your system.
Avoiding spams
Checking your computer regularly for botnet infection is among the best move that you can do to fight off different types of spams such as the Piggyback spam. There are filtering spam tools that you could use. One type of spam filtering tool is the “integrated” one. This tool is a common feature of email software. The integrated filtering tool gives you the option to mark spam emails for retention or deletion. You can also choose to block future messages that would be coming from a specific sender.
Then there is also the online spam filtering tool. This can be of two types, one for professional use and the other for home use. In the former, the spam is deleted from the mail server, so the spam does not reach the recipient anymore. The latter requires the authentication of the sender; if the spam mail is not authenticated, the email will fail to reach the intended recipient.
Posted in: Email Security.
Tagged: Email Security
As Valentine’s Day is fast approaching, there is a group that takes advantage of this upcoming celebration to spread spam. According to reports, messages containing subject lines such as”I love being in love with you” and “I belong to you” started to invade various mailboxes last January 22. The spam email lured victims through its interesting subject lines. The spam email contains a link to a certain site displaying 12 hearts. When the victim clicks one of these hearts, a malware instantly infects the computer turning it into a an “electronic zombie.” Another interesting fact is that the group who is responsible for this malware is the same group responsible for the Obama spam that spread a few weeks ago.
Effect of this spam attack
Upon clicking one of the hearts, a malware is released and your computer’s processing capabilities will be significantly affected. When this happens, your computer will be accessible to hackers, so viruses, worms and other types of malicious software could disrupt your computer system. Computer hackers and those who want to perform malicious tasks online can then use your computer for their cyber crime so that they cannot be easily detected by the authority. They can also access your private information without you suspecting it.
How to avoid spam attack
The best thing that you can do is to prevent yourself from being victimized by spammers. To do this, you have to be very careful when opening emails from unknown sources. It is also helpful that you enable the anti-spam feature of your program. Another option is to buy a software that would protect your computer from malware and spyware.
Posted in: Email Security.
Tagged: Email Security
