Detecting and Preventing Against Phishing Scams: The good thing about phishing scams is that they’re pretty easy to identify. Here are a few pointers to help protect against falling into a Phishing trap.
- If it is the first time you have received a letter from your bank or credit card company and it is requesting personal information, it is a good idea to call the organization first and ask them if it is legit or not. Remember that your credit card company and bank will never contact you by email and ask you to update information, so they will obviously confirm that the email is forged.
- If you receive an email from an organization which you aren’t associated with, delete it immediately.
- Check the contents of the email for spelling errors. A professional document from a reputable company will always use proper grammar and spelling. If the email is riddled with misspelled words and confusing phrases you can go ahead and suspect that it is a phishing scam.
- Don’t click on hyperlinks. Hyperlinks in phishing scams are not legitimate URLs and redirect you to a “fake” website. Always manually type the known URL into the address bar to assure that you are visiting the correct site. If you are unaware of the true URL of a site, I highly suggest using Google. Simply retyping the provided URL from the email message prevents redirection attempts, but does nothing if the page you are taken too is also controlled by the scammers.
- Exhibit good browsing and computer security practices. Use a firewall and update and run antivirus and antispyware programs often to make sure that your computer isn’t infected with a Trojan or malicious software. This will help prevent against attacks that install malicious software on your computer to collect personal information. At the same time, try not to visit questionable sites and avoid downloading unknown files / email attachments.
Eliminate Phishing: There are a few things you can do to help prevent phishing scammers from getting away with identity theft. First of all, you should notify the organization which in being illegitimately impersonated. Most major banks and credit card companies have a phone number or email address to report phishing scams and spam. You should also notify friends and family about the dangerous threat of phishing scams and if you receive a phishing email it’s a good idea to take a screen shot and send it to them so that they will also be able to identify phishing email themselves. If your email or web mail provider allows you to block mail from specific email address, I personally would go ahead and block all mail from the suspected scammer. This way you’ll never have to deal with further phishing scams from the same illegitimate source.
Key Logging
Another common method of identity theft is the use of key logging programs. These malicious applications hide themselves on your computer and record everything single key that you press. Then, they will secretly forward this information to a remote location where someone can evaluate the key strokes to determine passwords, usernames, credit card numbers, and whatever else you might have typed. Scary, eh?
Well, that’s just the beginning. Key logging programs require minute system resources so there is no recognizable decline in computer performance and there are, in fact, many legal key logging programs that are used to monitor one’s online activity. Since key logging applications are purposefully hidden from view, those with infected machines may go weeks or months before realizing that someone has been observing their keystrokes. When they finally realize what’s been going on, it isn’t pretty. One third of all identity theft crimes involve key logging applications. You can’t argue the facts, but you can protect yourself from key logging and identity theft.
Detecting and Preventing Against Key Logging: Here are some simple, yet effective, ways to detect and prevent against nasty key logging programs.
- Key logging programs have to send the key strokes they collect back “home” so the identity thieves can peruse it and gather personal information. By using a firewall such as Zone Alarm or Kerio that monitors outbound activity, you will be notified the first time a key logging program attempts to contact a remote location from your computer and be able to block this from happening. Now, this will essentially render the key logging application useless, but it is still on your computer and you’ll have to get rid of it.
- Avoid downloading files and attachments from unknown or untrustworthy websites or P2P networks. Strange file names are usually a sign that the file you are about to download isn’t what you think it is.
- Scan your computer weekly for viruses and spyware with various scanning software. If, for some reason, you get infected with a malicious key logging program, programs like Ewido and Spybot’s Search and Destroy do a good job finding and removing the troublesome programs before they can do too much damage.
Key logging programs are a pain because of how easily they can remain hidden for long periods of time. That is why step #3 is so important, and not just for Key Logging programs, but for all kinds of malicious software. Make sure to update your antivirus and antispyware programs frequently and run a full system scan at least once a week.
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