Learn to be safe on the Internet. Everyone in the world has access to the Internet and that quadruples your chances of coming into contact with a dishonest person. Use a few precautions so you don’t fall prey to their schemes.

1. Use passwords that are not easy to guess. The trouble with passwords is that we often forget them. You can use the same password for your online accounts but make it hard for anyone to guess. That rules out pet names, children’s names, nicknames and other words that a friend or family member could figure out.
2. Avoid making transactions on unsecured terminals and local Wi-Fi hotspots. Many places offer Wi-Fi signals these days but it is best to browse the Internet in these places and not perform more private transactions like checking email or bank accounts. Because it is unsecured, a third party could hack in and gain access to your passwords and hence, your accounts.
3. Shop with care. Check the security certificates of each site you do business with. If you don’t see a small closed lock in the top or bottom corner, it is not safe to enter personal information. PayPal is a favored online account for people doing business on eBay or businesses that sell from their websites. More and more sites are offering PayPal as a way to pay for your purchases. When paying this way, you only have to enter the email address associated with the account and you are redirected to their secure site to complete the transaction. No personal information is revealed by you.
4. Don’t share personal information in chat rooms or social networking sites like MySpace. These places are perfect targets for pedophiles and identity thieves. Online, you can pose as anyone to coax information out of kids as well as adults. Warn your children about all types of predators who may try to get vital family information out of them.
5. Delete SPAM. You could be opening a virus. Place high security measures on email accounts so only emails from known associates can get through. Everything else is directed to a bulk mail folder for you to check. Once a virus gets in your computer it can access your personal information for a third party.
6. Don’t download suspicious programs. Some sites on the Internet are set up to defraud people and get their personal information. If the site’s certificates can’t be verified don’t download it. This could be a criminal’s way of accessing your information.

The Internet opens up an entirely new world but it is one where you have to be smart to avoid becoming a victim.

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6 Ways to Protect Your Identity on the Internet

Here are a few ways to make the likelihood of becoming a victim of identity theft likely.

1. Don’t give out personal or financial information unless necessary. This includes store credit applications, doctor’s offices and any other service that you use. Blanks for a social security number may come standard on many forms but you don’t have to fill it in. if a place of business asks for it, request a copy of their policy regarding personal customer information.
2. Shred it like lettuce. Shredders don’t cost much and they can save you a bundle. Cross cut shredders cut documents into smaller pieces and on an angle so it is harder for a thief to put them back together. What should you shred? Before you toss old bills, receipts of any kind, medical and insurance forms or expired credit and insurance cards, send them through the shredder.
3. Use your debit cards as credit cards when shopping. If you do, there is no need to enter a PIN number on the keypad. This eliminates the temptation for a thief to look over your shoulder to memorize your number.
4. Be aware that thieves do go through your trash. It sounds nasty and foul but if they think they will find personal information about you, they will do it. Even junk mail that you don’t open can give them enough information about you to get them started on a crime spree at your expense.
5. Ask a trusted family member to pick up your mail or stop your mail delivery service when on vacation. A dead giveaway to identity thieves that the occupants of the home are away is the amount of newspapers that pile up in the driveway. Stop all deliveries to your home while you are gone. It is a federal offense to steal mail, but if no one sees, the thieves can’t get caught. And, it’s easier to steal from a home mailbox than a metal postal box or a P.O. Box.
6. Investigate identity theft protection with your credit card companies. Many companies offer programs to register your credit cards to protect against fraudulent usage. If not, look into an identity theft company. Many of the things that you can do for free will protect you but if you can pay for the added protection it wouldn’t hurt.

Each year, thousands and thousands of people become the victim of identity thieves. Protect yourself with the above suggestions to make it that much harder for criminals to profit at the expense of your good name.

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How to Protect Yourself from Identity Theft

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.

1. Sharing your personal financial information with other people. This includes other family members. Many identity thieves are people that you know. They obtain your information by being close to you. It is a good rule of thumb not to leave important documents or mail laying around where anyone who enters your home could get access to it.
2. Giving out financial information over the telephone. This is a ploy used by identity thieves to reach the elderly. They make calls pretending to be a reputable agency or a bank and ask for social security and credit card numbers. Just like that, the criminal has access to your entire life.
3. Someone steals your wallet. This method used to be the most common. Thieves still steal your wallet to use credit cards, get social security cards and driver’s licenses. Don’t carry your social security card in your wallet or write down PIN numbers and keep them there. If your wallet is stolen, cancel credit cards immediately and report the theft to police. Keeping all agencies on alert before anything happens will send up red flags when the thief tries to use your information.
4. Forgetting to shred all mail. Even junk mail can be dangerous in the hands of the wrong person. The safest way to keep thieves out of your trash is to shred it before disposing of it.
5. Acting unwisely in public places. When people think they are safe, they may let down their guard. Unfortunately, this is when identity thieves strike. In stores, keep your purse or wallet close at hand so that no one can pick your pockets. When punching in PIN numbers, cover the screen with your hand so no one can see your numbers. Avoid putting driver’s license numbers on your checks and also telephone numbers. People seldom write checks these days unless it is to pay bills. In the grocery store, they often ask for this information on checks but you can write it down for the clerk. If a check is stolen from you, this information can prove valuable to the thief.

Now that people are out to steal your identity, protecting that information is quite important. Know the common ways that people become victims and avoid those actions to help keep your identity safe.

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5 Ways You Can Become a Victim of Identity Theft

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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 have been clever enough to get through your browser’s built in protection.  Here are a few of them:

Earthlink Toolbar Scamblocker

• Earthlink provides a free toolbar for your browser that includes a Scamblocker, which is used to protect you from phishing scams and pop ups.
• It works by warning you if you attempt to connect with a page that is on Earthlinks blacklist of fake sites.
• It analyzes every site you visit and display the security rating of the web page on the toolbar.

Earthlink’s Scamblocker can be downloaded at this link:
http://www.earthlink.net/software/free/toolbar/

Netcraft Anti-phishing Toolbar

• Netcraft is provides a tight knit community where when one person reports a phishing email, the listed URL is blocked for all Netcraft members.
• By displaying the website’s hosting location, it helps expose fraudulent URLs.  For example, if your bank is located in the U.S. and the hosting location is listed as Poland, it is most likely a scam.
• The toolbar will also detect URLs that use certain letters or characters to deceive.

The Netcraft Anti-phishing Toolbar can be downloaded at this link:
http://toolbar.netcraft.com/

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TrustWatch Toolbar

• Trust Watch offers a free toolbar designed to protect you from phishing attacks, identity theft, and internet fraud.
• It performs checks in real-time to inform you if the website you are attempting to visit has been verified by a legitimate third-party organization, and whether or not it is safe to send personal information through the site.
• It is equivalent to performing a credit check.

The TrustWatch Toolbar can be downloaded at this link:
http://toolbar.trustwatch.com/

Stopzilla Anti-Spyware 5.0

• Stopzilla is an ant-spyware program that detects and prevents phishing attacks, popup ads, spyware, adware, and any other form of malicious applications, as well as hijack protection.

Stopzilla can be downloaded at this link:
http://www.stopzilla.com/

Spybot – Search and Destroy

• Sybot Search and Destroy is a free to use anti-spyware program.
• The largest benefit of this program is that it will write-protect all of your computer’s host files, which is the main target of phishing spyware.

Spybot can be downloaded at this link:
http://www.safer-networking.org

Webroot’s Phish net

• Phish Net uses a dynamic blacklist that aids in protecting phishing attacks.
• It works by storing personal data (eg. Credit card numbers, bank accounts, etc.), and alerting you as to whether or not it is a trusted site when you attempt to enter personal information.
• It will also alert you to any redirects that may have happened during the transmission of your data, as well as make sure the site has an encrypted connection before transmission.

Webroot’s Phish net can be downloaded at this link:
http://www.webroot.com/consumer/products/

North Star Strategic IT – Your Denver IT  Support company

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Denver IT Support: Anti-phishing Software

Identity thieves use high tech methods to find ways of defrauding innocent people. They come up with telephone scams, internet website scams, email scams and other ingenious plans, like taking photos of your card with a cell phone camera. When times are hard, these same thieves could resort to less sophisticated ways of stealing.

Consumers have become smarter in order to outsmart identity thieves. You read articles and booklets on how to protect yourself from these criminals. That includes shredding mail, being careful when shopping online, paying bills online and getting an annual credit report. Using reputable identity protection programs also helps you stay safe from the prying eyes of others.

You should be in the clear now, right? Think again. When people are faced with losing their homes and the ability to provide for their families, all sorts of ideas fill their heads. It isn’t just the chic criminal you need to watch out for but the desperate identity thief as well.

Who are they?
They could be anyone: your next door neighbor, a relative down on his or her luck, a coworker or someone you wouldn’t even suspect like a professional doctor or lawyer. And, the regular purse snatcher or carjacker falls into this category as well. A poor economy brings out the violent thief as well.

It sounds like a scene from The X-Files but “trust no one.” You can protect your identity by being street smart and savvy in your dealings with other people. Resist the urge to order items over the telephone at work or in a public area. You might think you are whispering but someone is hearing you.

Still follow the same precautions that you did when identity thieves swiped purses and wallets to get their information:

1. Don’t leave your purse in the car or your mail on the seat in full view. Lock your car doors even in your own driveway.
2. Use ATM machines at banks and during the day. At night, thieves can assault you for your card, money and your car.
3. Be aware of your surroundings. It is harder for a thief to sneak up on you if you are looking them right in the eye.
4. Don’t give out any personal or financial information over the telephone for any reason.

Identity thieves are still active in these tough economic times and they are returning to some tried and true methods to get your information. Protect yourself in every way so you don’t become a victim.

Provided by Jim Horton - North Star Strategic IT
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Identity Theft and the Economy

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 that is used only for shopping.  That means creating a special email address that will be used only for registering at shopping sites.  It also means dedicating a single credit card just for online purchases.  Creating a cyber identity in this way will help you spot any signs of trouble early before too much damage can be done.

After ;your shopping is done for the season be sure to check your dedicated email address at least once a week – keeping an eye out for spam and suspicious emails.  If you spot any suspicious emails be sure not to respond to them.  If you receive emails that appear to be phishing attempts you can report them to the Federal Trade Commission, or directly to the bank or other institution that is being targeted.

At the same time be sure to check the balance on your cyber credit card to make sure no unauthorized charges have been made.  Keeping an eye out for charges you did not make will give you an early warning that identity theft may have taken place.  If you do spot a problem be sure to contact your credit card company right away.  Also contact the credit reporting agencies and place a fraud alert on your account.  That will notify those who review your credit report that there is a potential problem.

Author: beconrad

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Cyber Christmas Shopping – Keeping Your Identity Safe

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, the more spam there is the more delays there are in the transmission of important business information. Internet service providers must then increase bandwidth to handle the larger volume. This is not free and you can guess where the additional cost will end up – on your internet bill.

Viruses, Worms and Malware
Viruses have become commonplace and devastating. Spammers will include viruses and malicious software in the messages they send out disguised as attachments. Some of these viruses will silently install on your machine and give the hacker any vital information stored in your system. Identity theft is perpetrated many times this way.

Viruses are also created with the single purpose of destroying property. Consumer reports recently studied the cost of damage that has been done to computers in this manner. The cost is over eight billion dollars worldwide in the past two years alone. This number does not include costs of anti-spam and virus software that consumers have felt compelled to purchase.

Productivity
While spam is irritating, it also eats up your valuable time just filtering through it to find your real email among all the spam. For businesses that receive hundreds or thousands of important emails daily, the cost in productivity is substantial. Spam calculators, like the one available at cmsconnect.com, estimate the lost time to be nearly 50 hours per employee and almost $1000 per person per year. That is a significant amount of money and time.

Lost Messages and Data
Spam blockers and filters that are supposed to be protecting us from the bad emails often grab legitimate correspondence as well. Even one lost important email from a client or supplier can cost money and relationships.

Identity Theft
The latest in the long line of schemes to bilk you out of your money are phishing frauds. Phishing uses what looks like an official email from a company you do business with. The message will be worded in such a way that the spammer hopes you will input your personal information, thereby allowing them the opportunity to steal your identity and more. This scheme alone has wound up costing victims billions of dollars.

Spam has become a drain on society, at least from an economic and productive standpoint. Everyone but the spammer is paying an extreme amount of money for his or her actions.

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The Costs of Spam

As the spam epidemic has grown the government has enacted the CAN-SPAM act (Controlling the Assault of Non Solicited Pornography and Marketing). This act has attempted to legislate the activities of any company hoping to send bulk commercial email as well as companies that are marketing their products in the messages. It has created stiffer penalties for those who violate it and gives the consumer the right and the way to ask that spammers cease and desist.

The CAN-SPAM act was signed in January of 2004. This act covers any and all emails whose express purpose is advertising or promotion. Even including ones whose contents are only available online. The act also covers what is considered transactional or relational messages. In other words, messages from websites that you may have had a previous transaction or relationship with. This rule applies to both new and existing customers. None of the correspondence may contain false routing information.

Several federal agencies have been charged with enforcing the act. The Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice both have been given authority to enforce the CAN SPAM act. It also gives the internet service providers an outlet to sue violators in order to recoup any losses they may have incurred.

Other Major Provisions of the Law

• Bans the attempt to fake any information in the header or subject. In other words, they must identify correctly what the message is and the routing information as well. To and from information must also be accurate. This way you know exactly who sent the email and from where.
• No misleading subject lines. The subject line must not be falsified to make the recipient open the email thinking it is safe. It must clearly state the subject of the email message.
• All of these types of emails must offer a way for the recipient to opt out of future emails from the same sender. All such requests to get out of receiving email must be honored by the sending company and your email address must be erased from their list or database. The commercial company will have a maximum of ten days to stop sending you messages.
• When it comes to commercial bulk emails these must be easily identified as advertisements or solicitations. They must include the sender’s actual mailing address as well.
• Recipients must be warned in advance of any sexually explicit material in the email before they open it. This must be somewhere in the subject line.

Violators of this legislation face serious penalties. Each violation can carry a fine as high as $10,000 per incident and in some instances; the commercial mailer could face incarceration.

Along with the CAN SPAM is the Digital Phish Net, or DPN, which was enacted in 2004. This is a mutual effort between law enforcement officials and the internet industry. The whole purpose is to identify and punish spammers who are performing illegal activity by phishing. Internet auctions, financial groups and internet service providers are all working to fight this type of cyber crime. They get involved by providing information on violators in real time to police.

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Spam – What is Your Protection Under the Law?

It is always best to immediately contact a company directly if you have any doubts about an email you received asking for information. Use the contact number listed on your invoice or statement, because the contact number on the email will most likely direct you to the identity thief.

You should never click on any links in an email you find suspicious. If you do, you put your computer at risk of very harmful Trojan horse spyware, which will install keyloggers on your system. Doing so allows hackers direct access to any and all personal information stored on your computer, which is used to steal your identity and boost their financial status.

Do not, under any circumstances, fill out a form that has been sent in an email requesting personal information.  Any requests for personal information should be flagged as spam.  The growing technology of HTML allows phisher to create professional and sophisticated forms.  And any information you fill out directly ends up in the hands of the phisher. Any links in unsolicited emails are harmful and should not be trusted. Phishers can create links that pose as though they are legitimate. Phishers uses methods such as misspelling addresses or using sub-domains that include a legitimate business name.

Links can also be masked to look like a legitimate company’s web page, but clicking will actually send you to a phisher’s website. Avoid cutting and pasting a link into the browser and take the time to type it out.  This will allow you to bypass clicking the link of the suspected phishing email. Be on the lookout for emails that are impersonal, as legitimate companies will contain at least some piece of specific personal information that only you would know. For example, your bank will usually include a portion of your account number in the email.

Remember that it is a phisher’s mission to steal from you leaving them endless amounts of time to invent creative ways to get personal information out of you. Make sure you are protected with updated anti-spyware and ant-virus software at all times.  The use of anti-spam filters will also eliminate the amount of phishing spam that reaches your inbox. Always take caution when opening attachments in any emails, even if they seem to come form people you have met.

Always report any phishing emails you receive in order to eliminate and get rid of phishers. Send a copy of the email to the real company being used as a cover and also send them to: spam@uce.gov and reportphishing@antiphishing.org. The emails you send will be used by the Anti-Phishing Working Group to help fight phishing.  This organization is a coalition between the internet industry, and financial institutions and law enforcement.

Forewarned is forearmed, stay informed by visiting the Federal Trade Commission’s Identity Theft website: www.consumer.gov/idtheft.

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Don’t Fall for the Phisher’s Bait

Do not Preview
If your email comes with a preview option, you will want to disable this function. The reason this is so important is many spam type emails contain an imbedded code that will infiltrate your computer leaving you prone to viruses, Trojans and more. Check the options available to you with your current email provider to change these settings.

Do not Fall for the Phisher’s Hook
A lot of spam is creatively camouflaged to get you to unknowingly give out your private personal information. The emails will look deceptively like the ones you may receive from your bank or other financial institution; they are attempting to sucker you into giving them your social security number, bank account number, private passwords or other identity related information. This is called phishing and is an illegal activity. When you respond to these emails, you are vulnerable to identity theft, credit card fraud or other financial internet criminal activity.

Friend or Foe?
Even though an email has been sent from a friend, do not assume that it is safe to view the attachments. You would be better served to contact your friend and make sure that they sent the email and the attachment. Often spammers are prone to attach viruses to their messages and if opened will take over your email program and send the message to all the contacts in your address book. Now all your friends will think that you have sent the message and the vicious cycle continues.

Read your Email in Plain Text
Well-informed spammers are known to use the program JavaScript to include unseen malicious code in the message. An example of this type of code is a virus that installs itself on your computer and gives the criminal access to your banking or other financial information and you are completely oblivious. To protect yourself from this type of scam change the display settings so that you are viewing all your messages in plain text. This will block the script from being able to get in your computer.

Never Respond
Whatever you do, don’t click on banners or reply to spam messages. If you do this, you have alerted the spammer that your address is a live email address and you will be flooded with more spam. Unless you know you have subscribed to a specific site do not click the unsubscribe button in a spam email. This is just another way they trick you into confirming that your email is valid. Of course, never forward any junk emails that come in the form of chain letters.

Most importantly use your common sense when dealing with spam, it is the best filter you can have. Use caution when checking your email, the best filters cannot keep out all spam messages.

Provided by Jim Horton - North Star Strategic IT
Your Denver source for IT computer support, network consulting and planning, voice over IP (VoIP) solutions, and so much more. Cisco Partner - VoIP and Unified Communications Microsoft Partner - Small Business Server Specialists Schedule time with one of our highly qualified network technology specialists

Five Tips to Protect Yourself from the Spam in Your Inbox