5 Ways You Can Become a Victim of Identity Theft
In this poor economy, identity theft is still a big problem. Now, more than ever, it is important to protect yourself from criminals who would rob you without you ever being aware until it is too late. Keep from being a victim by learning how you can easily become one.
Identity theft is a problem for businesses as well as you, the consumer. These thieves used to be interested in only robbing your bank account. Now, they look to use your personal information to open new accounts and get approved for loans, cars, boats and all sorts of merchandise. To that end, they employ high tech means to deceive you.
- Sharing your personal financial information with other people. This includes other
Denver IT Support: Anti-phishing Software
Growing technology allows the threat of spam to continue evolving, and phishing is the scam of the moment spammers are using. Your best defense against phishing is to be cautious and maintain a healthy level of skepticism. However, you can save time by using good anti-phishing software.
North Star Strategic IT – Your Denver IT Support company
Anti-phishing software works by searching for any phishing content that may exist in an email. It is normally used as a complementary service to your email service in the form of a toolbar. This toolbar will display the real name of any website you visit and any fake websites phishers tend to use.
This software offers a backup defense for blocking phishing attacks and sites that might… Continue reading...
How to Choose Anti-spam Filter Software
Everyone experiences the flow of unwanted emails wanting you to join this or that or insisting you have won tons of money. This spam email is not only bothersome, it is also dangerous in some cases. Many spammers use emails to transfer viruses and also adware and spyware to your PC. To stop this you need to use a good anti spam filter. This will also reduce the amount of junk mail you receive.
What is an anti-spam filter?
This refers to a special program used for detecting and blocking dangerous emails. It looks for words and phrases or other things that may indicate an email is spam. It is based on the assumption that email containing certain details is spam.
It also has… Continue reading...
How to Avoid 3 Common Internet Scams Targeting Business Owners
The Internet Crime Complaint Center’s (IC3) 2008 Report on Internet Crime found an alarming 33.1% in online crimes reported over 2007. IC3 is a partnership between the National White Collar Crime Center and the FBI.
IC3’s 2008 report revealed an average loss of $931 per complainant, for a total of an estimated $265 million lost in total due to internet fraud and scams. Online con artists each have a modus operandi that usually targets a specific subset of the population; some prey on the elderly, others on lonely singles, or even on children.
These three scams are known to target online businesses and business owners.
The Small Business Loan Scam, Targeted by Email
Perpetrators of small business loan scams often contact entrepreneurs by email, offering start-up loans at attractive interest rates. Since… Continue reading...
Losing Your Mind with Data Recovery
Losing all your data is a very traumatic experience for any computer user. This is especially true if you use your system for business or other important matters. Losing information that you have worked long and hard to accumulate can be very stressful, to say the least.
Everyone knows that it is a good idea to back up data on your computer every so often, however did you know you should check that backup? It will compound your frustration to find out what you thought was adequately backed up is not functioning correctly when you need it most.
Data loss can happen to anyone, even the most perceptive computer user or business can experience this problem. The problem is people tend to think… Continue reading...
Three Must-have Features for Backup Software
The right backup software caters to a business’ disaster recovery plan. A disaster recovery plan is used to quickly restore data and servers when hardware fails on the network. Part of an efficient disaster recovery plan is backup software that stores, secures and archives documents to external media such as tape, DVDs and network hard drives. However, not all backup software has the features necessary for large networks. These three features ensure your disaster recovery plan can handle quick recovery and storage requirements.
Verification Mode
One of the worst positions for a network administrator is being in charge of data restoration when the backups are corrupted. A good backup application has a checksum process that verifies the backups are copied without errors. A checksum is an error-checking process that checks the bits… Continue reading...
The 6 VOIP security risks you should know about
Implementing a VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) system in your home or business can
seem very attractive given the cheap rates and bandwidth efficiency, but many users
are unaware of the security risk posed by unsecured Internet telephony. If you intend
to communicate sensitive information over VOIP, securing your connection is vital,
although it is still important take precautions even if you only plan on using your
VOIP for domestic calls to friends and family, and here’s why.
Not all VoIP solutions are created equal. Cisco VoIP Business Solutions are all highly secure environments.
1. VOIP packet sniffing
Packet sniffing describes the process of analyzing the traffic passing through a
connection and, although all types of data transferal are vulnerable to packet
sniffing, it poses a particular privacy threat to VOIP as VOIP calls can be identified
and potentially accessed by… Continue reading...
Cyber Christmas Shopping – Keeping Your Identity Safe
If you dread going to the mall and spending hours looking for a parking spot and fighting the crowds you may be tempted to skip all that stress and do your Christmas shopping online these days. There are certainly many advantages to taking your holiday shopping online, including lower levels of stress, superior selection and in many cases very competitive prices.
But unfortunately shoppers are not the only ones hanging out online – identity thieves are always on the lookout for an opportunity to steal your personal data and wreck your good name. Fortunately there are some simple ways shoppers can fight back and keep those identity thieves at bay.
Create a Cyber Identity
One of the best ways to keep yourself protected online is to create your own cyber identity… Continue reading...
The Costs of Spam
The sheer volume of spam that is mailed out every minute has reached epidemic proportions. There is one simple reason for this, the cost is little and the rewards are excellent. Anyone with a list of addresses and internet access can send out thousands or millions of messages with a click. The cost to others however is now running in the millions of dollars.
Bandwidth
Spam costs everyone valuable internet bandwidth that is used for spam instead of legitimate business or personal use. Bandwidth is the rate at which data is transmitted, particularly the amount that can be transmitted in a specific amount of time. The lower bandwidth rate, the slower information travels.
Think of it as a traffic jam on a major highway… Continue reading...
How Spammers Get Your Email Address
Spam represents a large amount of mail sent, with thousands and thousands sent everyday worldwide. The worst part of it all is that some of the spam is coming from what appears to be your email address! So how exactly do spammers get your email address? Unfortunately, there are many ways spammers can access your email address with very few being legitimate.
Spammers use a technique known as “harvesting,” where they collect your email address from legitimate websites like USENET, chat rooms, message boards, AOL profile pages, and special interest group postings. They are sites you have visited and filled out a request info form leaving your contact information or ecommerce sites where you have placed orders.
Technology has aided… Continue reading...
