5 – Vulnerability that lead to Identity Theft

I found this interesting article about identity theft and what are the 5 major ways Identity Theft occurs.  The first one is that people don’t change-up their daily routine.  If people are watching you and your routine doesn’t change they have any easy way into your world.  The next two are ones we have talked about several times in social networking and computer scams.  Part of our guide to social networking is that you should never post sensitive data on you page and make sure your profile is set to private.  Computer and internet scam are running wild all over the internet.  Several computer security experts say that scareware and spyware has grown by over 600% in the last year.  The fourth way is through hackers (internal and external) stealing sensitive information of customers.  We hear stories all the time about credit card companies or financial companies losing customer data.  I wish I could say that is going to slow down in the future but I expect it to actually grow over the next several years.  I also expect that Identity Theft will grow by over 15% in the next and 20% the year after that.  The last method is through Healthcare moving to electronic records.  I agree that in the move to electronic records that we will see more identity or fraud from this activity.  I just wanted to share what the article said are the five vulnerabilities for identity theft and that we have to agree with all of them.  The biggest threats rights now come from the internet and internet scams.  The internet is full of spyware and scareware that is waiting to steal your identity or to harm your computer.

Article Link

Millions of computer compromised with Fake Security Software

Symantic stated this week that millions of computers are infected with fake security software.  Internet users get a pop-up on there computer telling them they are infected with worms, viruses and other malicious threats.  They tell you that you need to purchase antivirus or computer security software to remove the threats.  People are paying the $50-120 for the computer security software and actually get nothing in return, in fact some actually make your computer less secure.  When you pay the money the code is designed to remove the message and give you security software that isn’t very good or actually isn’t even security software.  It is estimated that these fake messages about computers being infected have been downloaded over 45 millions times and still rising.  This is just a reminder that if you get a message stating that you computer is infected with worms, trojans and other threats this is just a scam and don’t buy anything.  Verify your anti-spyware software is up to date and run a full system scan.  Remember that internet security starts with understanding the threats.

Symantic Article

Hotmail – Most Common Password Revealed

Last week when Hotmail user accounts were compromised a study was conducted on what was the most common password.  The password that was used the most was “123456.”  Some of you might remember that this is almost the same password as on the luggage in the movie Spaceballs.  If you are using Hotmail for email and your password is “123456” please change your password.

Passwords should be minimum 6 characters in length.  Passwords should have a capital letter and special character.  The more complex your password is the harder your account is to hack.

Password Article

New InternetSafetyCenter Coming Soon

I just wanted to inform everybody that a new Internet Safety Center will be released in the next couple of weeks.  We have been working around the clock on updating the content on the website along with creating new content.  We are going to vastly expanding our Identity Theft section and Computer Security sections.  We are also creating two new sections to the website Kids Corner and How to.  The Kid’s Corner will have information on some of the best websites for kids for education and some great kids friendly internet browsers.  The “How to” section of the website will contain videos on product reviews and How to do certain things.  Some of the How to video that will be released in the next month will be How to Backup your email for Outlook, Outlook contacts, Internet Favorites and more.  If you have suggestion for How to video please email us at howto@internetsafetycenter.com.

Internet Safety Center

Gmail Passwords Released on the Internet

Yesterday Microsoft Hotmail was a victim of a phishing scam and today Google Gmail becomes a victim of a phishing scam.  Google has announced that only about 500 accounts were compromised in the attack.  Internet phishing is not going to slow down anytime soon infect I expect it to grow dramatically over the next couple of years.  If you get an email stating you need to update your account information don’t click on the link inside the email.  Open a new internet browser and type in the website address manually.  This will help prevent you from becoming a victim of fraud or Identity theft.  We also encourage everybody to read out guide on how to spot a phishing email .  Remember that internet safety is about education and understanding the dangers.

Google Article

Internet Safety Center

New Trojan Stealing Your Bank Account Informatiom and Money

A new trojan spreading across the internet is designed to steal your bank account information and money.  This new trojan will infect IE 6, 7, 8, Firefox and Opera running on Windows.  This new trojan obtains your username and password of your bank account and then starts to withdraw money from your accounts.  What makes this trojan so dangerous is that it creates a fake webpage that displays your bank account information as if nothing was missing but in reality your money is being withdrawn. This kind of trojan will start to be common place in the near future as more computer users don’t protect themselves.  Computer security is critical to anybody access the internet and everybody should have spyware software installed.  If you are doing online banking then spyware software is even more critical to computer security.

Trojan Story

Phishing Scam running wild on Twitter

A giant phishing scam is currently running wild on Twitter.  The link left on the tweet takes you to a phishing website designed to looks like twitter and asks you for your user-name and password.  If you enter your twitter sign-in information the hackers then can control your Twitter account.  If you get a tweet and the link takes you to site looking similar to Twitter close your web browser.  The fake ulr in the phishing attack is http:\\videos.twitter.secure-login.com.  Remember that one best ways to spot a phishing website to look at the url and verify it is correct.  Internet safety and security starts with education yourself about the various kind of cyberattacks.  We have a full review on how to spot a phishing email and websites at Phishing/Email Scams.

Internet Safety Center

Providing a safety internet for everybody

Don’t become a victim of Scareware

Scareware is the new way scammers are not trying to confuse internet users.  Scareware is when you get a pop-up on your computer telling you that you have a virus, spyware or malware.  It shows you that your computer is infected and says you need to purchase antivirus protection for $60.  You pay the money and actually don’t get any protection from virus and spyware.  If you get a warning message of this kind close your internet browser and do a full system scan immediately.  We will have a video posted this week on how to spot these types of attacks.

Internet Safety Center

Microsoft Releases Critical Patche

It is the second Tuesday of the month and Microsoft has released several critical patches.  One of the patches is a zero-day patches means that criminals have been exploiting the vulnerability.  Remember that installing the latest patches from Microsoft is the first step in computer safety and security.
Internet Safety Center

News From The Last Several Days

Google has released several new patches for Chrome.  If you are using Chrome you need to update your browser.

Mozilla Firefox has released a new patch for Firefox 3.5.  If you are not using Firefox 3.5 we don’t recommend upgrading at this time.  Mozilla has had a few problems with 3.5 so waiting until they get the bugs fixed is a good idea.

Symantic the maker of Norton has removed a patch for their software.  The patch was causing there antivirus programs to freeze and not work.  Hold of updating your Norton software for the next day or so.

Internet Safety Center