New and Diverse tactics of Internet Criminals

Link to us: http://sn.im/v1vwq

Will you help your friends when they are in need and ask you for helps? I guess most of us would help them whenever we can and will try our very best to help them as they are our friends. It is a very common characteristic and value which most of the human has. Sadly, those Internet criminals out there see it as a weakness of human being and start to take advantage of it to swindle others’ money. Previously in our posts, we were talking about how scammers or criminals approach you with an identity of a stranger who you are not close to. However, the ways they approach their ‘preys’ is no longer the same.

On the 16th March 2010, CNN releases Internet fraud-related news in CNNMoney.com talking about the increasing of the Internet fraud cases and some new tactics used by criminals in committing Internet frauds. Nowadays, scammers become more and more savvy and cunning as they come out with new ways to commit crimes through Internet.

"We're seeing that the criminals are using new and diverse tactics to reach out to people," Kane said. "They'll take over your account and then use your identity to ask money from friends for an emergency. Instead of coming from a stranger, it's coming from someone who is supposedly your friend." said John Kane, manager of research for the Internal Crime Complaint Center.

Now, as you can see, even the criminals are reaching out to you through the social networking sites! Perhaps it is Facebook? Twitter? Flikr or Friendster? What is more scary is that they hack into your account and use your identity to pretend as you to cheat money from your friends in your friend list without you knowledge. In the same way, they can also hack into your friend’s account and pretend as your friend to ask for financial assistance.
Imagine this, if one day, your friend in facebook who claims that he or she is having an emergency which need RM5000. You are the ONLY person that she/he trusts, so in this critical time she can’t believe anyone but YOU to help her. What will you do? Will you help her? Sometimes, in this situation, we can’t think rationally, hence, the tendency of us helping our ‘friend’ is high.

Therefore, no matter how; the first thing you should do is to calm down and think what to do next after you receive such a message from your friend who asking for money. Then, call your friend to confirm that the message is sent by your friend. If your friend insisted that do not contact her through phone, then you should be skeptical. Anyway, you must get your friends clarify everything by themselves.
Besides, to avoid your account from being hacked and taken over, create a stronger password using alpha-numerical characters. Once you get to know that your account is being hacked, you should report the case to the social networking site host and then inform all your friends that your account is being hacked so that they will not be the victims of the hacker.

References: Aaron Smith, Nigerian prince still wants your money, CNNMoney.com [Online], Retrieved on 24th March 2010, URL: http://money.cnn.com/2010/03/16/news/economy/internet_fraud_fbi/index.htm

Computer fraud

Link to us:http://sn.im/uxjxc

URL:http://computersafetytips.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/computer-fraud.jpg

Have you ever wondered why your boss knows that you had copied company’s top secret files and in the end getting you fired? Have you ever encountered a situation where your friends told you that you have been online during the day but actually you were not? Or have you ever found that a bank called you because you have transfer all your money to another account through online but actually you didn’t?

These situations above are very common in our daily life no matter you realize or not. Even if it never happens on you, I bet you have heard of this situation before. We must ‘thanks’ spyware for its help. Spyware is some kind of program that might send your personal information in your computer to another computer in extreme details, including your key strokes. Isn’t this illegal? Most of the time, you are the one who agreed, downloaded and installed into your computer. You didn’t? Spyware is just everywhere and approximately 90% of computers that use internet are infected by spyware. Some programs include spyware and most people just don’t even bother to go through the terms and conditions especially when it is free. You can’t do anything if it is your company’s computer because the computer belongs to them, not you but there are protocols for them in using spyware. So, don’t worry.

The disaster that might cause by spyware is can’t be predicted but can be described with a word, devastated. I believe computer had become an essential part in our life as we used it to store our information due to convenience. For hackers, it is just a gold mine. With the help of spyware, it just makes hacker’s life easier. All they need to do is just waiting for you to type in your personal information such as password and account number. Therefore they can gain access to your account and your life by just a few clicks. Spyware can destroy your data, bankrupt you in a second and duplicate your identification. Maybe one day you will find out that there is another person with your name, living your life, using your money and committing crime on your behalf.

When there is a problem, people will try to counteract the problem with a solution. With suitable anti-spyware program, most of the spyware will be detected immediately. It can detect and eliminate the incoming spyware before it can do any damages. As the technology is getting advanced, there isn’t any anti-spyware program which can filter and detect all the spyware available as there will always have a new spyware created to sneak into your computer. The best solution is constantly update your anti-spyware system and be extremely cautious with your internet surfing and program installation.
Good luck…

Chiw

The Good and Bad of Hacking

Link to us: http://snipr.com/urt76

People tend to associate hacking as a bad thing to do. But, what does hacking actually means? Is it hacking is all about illegal acts and crimes? The definition of hacking depends on who you ask. As there will be people giving you positive definition while some of the people will give you negative definition on hacking. However, Bruce Sterling, author of The Hacker Crackdown, gives a positive view and explains the term hack as it “can signify the freewheeling intellectual exploration of the highest and deepest potential of computer systems. It is true. Hacking has its bad site as well its good side.

References: Donn B. Parker, 1998, Fighting Computer Crime, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., United State of America.

The Good of Hacking:

Some of the individuals and organizations conduct security audits and research, and then publish their findings. These findings help the users who are not familiar with the security to understand more and protect their security system. Besides, it helps to protect the online society from security risks and being exploited. In short, hacking is considered as good when it is used to find security holes and then help to fix the problems or develop security tools and techniques to fight against the security risks.

The Bad of Hacking:

Hacking becomes harmful when the hackers break into others’ computer systems to steal information such as financial information like bank account passwords or other corporate confidential information in order to gain…. Hence, it becomes an Internet crime where the hacker will be sentenced to a few years in prison under the Internet laws which we are going to discuss in the following post.

References: The Benefits of Hacking: A Different Perspective for
the Security Conscious [Online], Retrieved on 9th March 2010, URL: http://www.trdtechnical.com/eportfolio/Final_Project_Tina.pdf

In short, hacking has its good and bad sides. It is depends on how people use it and the intention of doing it. Anyways, there are ways to prevent you from becoming a victim of the hackers. The video below shows a easy step to stop hackers and key loggers.



Video taken from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmazjLt0zJE&feature=related

^^ErIcA^^

Phishing? Fishing?

Link to us: http://snipr.com/unhmq

Phishing? Do you mean ‘fishing’? Undeniable, both of the terms have the same pronunciation but meanings. Most of the people do not know what phishing is and some might heard about phishing but do not know how it works. Hence, the objective of this post is to tell more and let the readers learn more about phishing. Generally, phishing is the act of sending an e-mail to a user falsely claiming to be an established legitimate enterprise in an attempt to scam the user into surrendering private information that will be used for identity theft. (Reference: Webopedia, Definition of Phishing [Online], Retrieved on 3rd March 2010, URL: http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/P/phishing.html) Why is it called phishing? The term phishing is given as Internet scammers are using e-mail lures or as a bait to ‘fish’ for passwords, financial and personal data from the ‘sea’ of the Internet users.

How does phishing works?

Typically, it is considered as phishing when an email from a legitimate organization is directed to the user and gives a link to request the user to visit a website where they are asked to update their personal information such as passwords, bank account numbers, social security and credit card details. However, the website is a just a bogus website that is set up only to steal the users’ information.

Ways to protect yourself from being phished

1. Don’t give out information the company should have
Companies will never simply ask for sensitive information through Internet which they already have such as usernames, credit card numbers and passwords but phishers will. So, do not simply fill in forms that ask for sensitive information.

2. Keep Your Email and Instant Message Addresses Private
To keep yourself safe from the phishers, you have to first prevent them from landing in your email inbox. Make yourself different email addresses for your trusted friends, and family, one for financial institution and one for general use. Many of the email providers will allow users to redirect emails from each of these different addresses to one account to minimize the inconvenience of checking each account.

3. If you are in doubt:

i) Immediately Report Suspected Phishing Contacts
If you suspect that the email which you receive is a phishing scam, report the case immediately by forwarding the email to reportphishing@antiphsihing.org or spam@uce.gov. Besides, almost every bank or credit card lender has their own website where allows customers to report suspicious emails and instant messages.

ii) Call the company directly
You can also call the company’s customer service phone number straight away to confirm if the email is from the company itself.

(Reference: cnet.reviews official website, How to avoid phishing scams [Online], Retrieved on 3rd Macrch 2010 URL: http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-3000_7-6459186-1.html)

^^ErIcA^^

PayPal Scams

Link to us: http://snipr.com/unhll

Online shopping have became a trend these days from buying clothes, accessories, toys, to antic things etc. online business are blooming like mushroom these days, creating blogs and website to promote their business and some are very successful. Purchasing via online is easy, convenient and flexible however there are its disadvantages-internet scams!

If you are an online shopper and uses Pay Pal be careful. There are tons of scammers targeting PayPal users by sending users an official looking email asking them to verify their account and personal information. The whole email looks as if its real by including its logo, graphics, and page format. These scammers will send emails saying that PayPal is trying to detect unused accounts and email addresses and Pay Pal has been encountering problems with their software and therefore files have been lost, whatever way the content of the page is written the main motif of these scammers are asking users to update or verify their personal and credit card information. There are times where forms provided for this purpose right in the email; other times there is a link directing the recipient of the email to another site where they are to enter their information.

The sole purpose of all this is to get a users details and cheat them out of money. Once these scammers get hold of this information these users will be the next victim of identity thief.
References: PayPal Scams, Scam Laws [Online], Retrieved on 1st March 2010, URL: http://www.spamlaws.com/paypal-scam.html

Here are few guidelines that users can follow to prevent from being a victim:-

1. Log in safely
Open a new window browser and type in PayPal’s URL

2. Check email greetings
PayPal always address their users by their first and last name or the business associated with your PayPal account. However a PayPal scam email will address by using ‘Dear PayPal user’ or ‘Dear PayPal member.

3. Don’t download and share personal information by email
PayPal will never send you attachments to download and will also never ask for passwords and financial information through an email.

4. Password safety
Keep your password private and confidential don’t share it with others if you doubt anyone knows change it immediately. Try using a more secure password by choosing a more unique password for example a combination of alphabets, numbers and symbols. Don’t use the same password for PayPal and other online services like, Yahoo, MSN, etc, as using the same password will increase the likelihood that someone could learn your password and gain access to your account.

References: PayPal, Security Tips and Fraud Prevention
URL: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/gen/fraud-prevention-outside

Podcast- Penipuan Hadiah Percuma Melalui Internet

Link to us: http://snipr.com/uie84

'Online Free Gifts Scams'

Im Tenesha, the title of my blog for this week is 'Online Free Gifts Scams'

Who doesn’t like free gifts or goods? Everyone likes free stuffs. Imagine a click of a button and we can get free gifts and goods! However pause just minute, do things come as simple as that? This is what people fail to realize and always find themselves trapped in internet frauds online advertisements about free gifts.

free gifts online can come in many forms from free goods, phone cards, free vouchers holiday packages, even free Wi-Fi and etc. A typical ad will be asking you to answer survey questions, complete sponsor offers or refer to few friends. The goods are expensive and valuable however some consumer don’t ever get their free goodies at all.

These sites indicates that by answering survey questions and you’ll get free goods however its more likely that you’re been registered in a drawing to win the item. Careless people always get trapped to these types of frauds because the initial advertisement of the site misrepresents the process of getting the freebies. The ad makes it so simple and easy however in reality the survey they sign up for may be in pages and in the end don’t necessarily receive anything at all.

Beware and make sure you only go to authorized sites here are few guidelines you can follow:

· Go with names that you recognize

Go to sites that you heard before. If you never heard of the company’s name goggle the name with the word ’scams’. If it’s a scams there will be complaints or articles about the company.\

· Get reliability report of the company

Uncover any complaints that have been filed under the name of the company from the Better Business Bureau (BBB)

· Check for the contact information

Look beyond emails address or contact form, look for address and telephone numbers and try calling if there’s anyone picks up. You don’t want get it one where the company doesn’t want you to contact them.

· Read the term and conditions and also the privacy policy

There might be hidden information and details that user may overlook at. Read every single line carefully especially regarding with your personal details.

· Look for trust marks and seals

Online trust marks are icons that tell you that these sites meets third party standards.

Glossary:

penipuan- scams

cabutan hadiah- lucky draw

awas- beware

pedoman- guidelines

kebolehpercayaan- reliability

Website Cloning

Link to us: http://snipurl.com/uf1rn

Website cloning these days are very popular. There are always websites and programs that teach you how to cone a website and also how the whole process does is done showing step by step instructions. Because of this there are some irresponsible people who take this opportunity to clone website and cheat user online. This scammers will clone famous websites that requires user to fill in their user name, password, personal information like bank account pin number, identification number and so on and the sole purpose is to illegally take their personal information and hack to their personal bank account. User will blindly type in all information asked without hesitating thinking it’s the real trusted website that have been logging into all this while.

To avoid being fooled here are some tips on how to check a site if its real:-

a. 1. Visit the banks website in the domain name in your browser

b. 2. Phone your bank to make sure if they requested for your details

c. c 3. You can also determine if the website is genuine a not by looking at language used on the website . if the it is fake the quality of language will be poor.

Other precautions to take:-

a. 1. Always check your bank account statements and balances especially if you use online banking and transactions.

b. 2. Be careful on what you download from the internet

c. c 3. Be careful while opening attachments via your email.

In this current world of technology everything is possible cloning a website is as easy as a,b,c this days for scammers these days its we as internet user that need to take the necessarily precautions as every click you click on the internet its your own responsibility.

-Tenesha-

Lottery Scams

Link to us: http://snipurl.com/ucidl

“Hey congratulations, you have won in lucky draw and you will soon receive a cheque worth $600,000 U.S. Cash!”

URL:http://static.which.net/media/images/guide-taster/foreign-lottery-scams-explained_300x200-141822.jpg

Does it sound great? Yeah of course right?
How long do you need to work to earn cash worth $600,000 U.S. right? Some people make take the whole life to accumulate such amount and some people may take years to earn that.
And now just right in front of your eyes you don’t have to do anything or pay any effort in return to get something instead you will automatically get such big amount of money. I can frankly say that it is definitely a fraud. Remember that, there is no free lunch in this world everything needs us to work it out ourselves to get such good return. If we have such thinking in our mind we will definitely able to stay away from such scam.
Reference: Brett M.Christensen, Email Lottery Scams International Lottery Scam Information, [Online], Retrieved on 10 February 2010.
URL: http://www.hoax-slayer.com/email-lottery-scams.html

However lately we found out that In Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore do have lots of scam working out towards the citizens. Nearly every day when we open the newspaper the news on scam is just so visible and everywhere around us. Why people always fall in such scam have you ever think of it before? Actually sometime we actually able to identify it as scam especially when we read the newspaper we might be thinking why such people can fall into such scam it is just so RIDICULOUS.
Reference: Consumers Fraud Reporting Lotteries, [Online] Retrieved on 10 February 2010.
URL: http://www.consumerfraudreporting.org/lotteries.php

Yet when that incident really hits on us we do get con again. Normally such scam can successfully con us because we are greedy for such return that we do not need to do or sacrifice anything to get it. That’s why the humanity greediness is actually the main major that makes us fall in such scam. So we shall always remind ourselves there are no such thing as what we call money drop from sky or free lunch. This could at least prevent being the victim and the scam operators are the WINNERS. How do the scam operators work? They are smart to catch the interest of what people as bait to trap the peoples and one of the examples is through the lottery scam.
Reference: Lottery Scams, [Online], Retrieved on 12 February 2010
URL: http://www.fraudaid.com/scamspam/lottery/index.htm

In Malaysia and Singapore it is legal for the citizens to buy lotteries. So many people will hope that they pay out such a small amount of money in order to hope that there will be a big return of money as this is the lottery objective that the people who in charge wants to fulfill. Of course they do earn a lot but buying lottery actually also gives many people a fresh hope that they will able to strike and this will at least help them to get a better life or fulfill some dreams. Especially when the economy is down even more and more people will wants to buy the lottery just get a chance to gamble their see whether they will have such good luck or not that they will get such amount of money to past through the bad economy. In this incident greediness takes place again!

So in all such incidents if the lottery that you need to use lesser money to but the prize to won is in high return will be the one that all the people will focus to buy on. Especially when they themselves have strong confident that they will going to hit it will be the one that will invest in a larger sum of money and at the same time if those scam operators call to persuade them to buy stakes foreign lotteries which for sure will get higher return if those lottery is from places like America, London or even Australia will be the best bait use to trap the peoples. As we know their currency is higher than us and for sure the return also will be much higher than that lottery we buy in our country here. This is why many people got con in the lottery scam. As this scam operators are very smart. They are able to speak very well with you through phone or explain carefully as if such thing really exists through sending email and websites to prove to you that there is actually such thing.

Nevertheless since the country are so far from us most of us won’t bother to check or take much notice about it because the money they spend might be a small amount and they thing such advance and rich country will not have such scam problem. This is what most people have in mind. This is why more and more victims got con in such lottery scam. Remember that, everything on websites can be created easily. Some may take few days, some may take few years. So remember we should only believe what we see in our own eyes and please do not invest on things that we are not reachable or contactable in our distance as these things involve money and money is one of the sinful thing that some of us cannot resist from it.

As the conclusion I would like to say is lottery scams is one of the most common types of email that we will always received in our email and some if the web can detect it might send to your junks to awake you that’s is actually a real JUNK. You will have to make decision to open it or not and to believe it or not. Thus I feel that each and every one of us must always be careful with all the things happening around us don’t take the news in the newspaper as just a story take it as a hint or advice that we will have to be more careful and caution with the incidents that almost the same hits on us. Especially those emails that tell you that you have won a large amount of money in an international lottery or some others that are more o less the same please do not be so innocent to believe it and get too happy over it as this will make us lost our mind very fast.

Those scam operators are very smart. They will not make you notice or awake from your dream as fast as they will take few times to contact with you and to persuade you into the trap that they had set earlier. Many of them will never run away from those common dialogues which will then or later on ask for personal details, identity of the bank accounts and those transferring fees transactions. So when u hears all this remembers to stay away and do not believe it. As you will regret later on if you trust and do what they say.
Reference: Paul Gill, The Top 10 Internet/Email Scams, [Online], Retrieved on 12 February 2010.
URL: http://netforbeginners.about.com/od/scamsandidentitytheft/ss/top10inetscams_3.htm

DO NOT TAKE THINGS FOR GRANTED. EVERYTHING THAT WE GET NEEDS US TO WORK FOR IT. THERE IS NOTHING IN REALITY THAT WE DO NOT HAVE TO DO TO GET SUCH BIG AWARD. THEREFORE BEWARE THOSE SCAM OUT THERE.BE MORE CAUTION ESPECIALLY ADVICE TO THE OLDIES AND YOUNGSTERS.

*Chiw*