From: “Paypal Security”
Subject: New Security Requirements
Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2005 19:20:51 -0800

Dear valued PayPal® member,

Due to recent fraudulent transactions, we have issued the following security requirements.

It has come to our (attion)**Spelling Mistake**, that 98% of all fraudulent transactions are caused by members using stolen credit cards to purchase or sell non existant items. Thus we require our members to add a (Debit/Check card)**Ding Ding Ding are your Alarm Bells going off Yet???** to their billing records as part of our continuing commitment to protect your account and to reduce the instance of fraud on our website. Your Debit/Check card will only be used to identify you. **YEAH RIGHT!!!** If you could please take 5-10 minutes out of your online experience and renew your records you will not run into any future problems with the PayPal® service. However, failure to confirm your records will result in your account suspension.**All Paypal Accounts Earn Good Money For Paypal, Why Suspend Them?**

We are requesting this information to verify and protect your identity. Federal regulations require all financial institutions to obtain, verify, and record identification from all persons opening new accounts or obtaining ongoing payment services. This is in order to prevent the use of the U.S. banking system in terrorist and other illegal activity. For these reasons, PayPal® will utilize services provided by various credit reporting agencies to verify the information you submit to us. **Did Paypal Forget Their Rock Solid Verification System?**

Once you have updated your account records your pending PayPal® account transactions will not be interrupted and will continue as normal.

To update your billing records please login to your account by clicking here.**DING DING DING, ALARMS, BELLS, WHISTLES**

Thank you for your time,
PayPal® Billing Department.

The click here address is (but dont click it!) :-
http://paypal-secure-signin.com/cgi/webscr.html?cmd=_login-run
Notice the http:// should be a secure https://

Whois Information for the website:_
::Name Servers::
ns6844.paypal-secure-signin.com
ns9386.paypal-secure-signin.com

::Dates & Status::
Created Date 2005-07-23 11:07:18 EDT
Updated Date 2005-07-23 11:07:18 EDT
Valid Date 2006-07-23 11:07:18 EDT
Status ACTIVE

Moral of this Story:- NEVER CLICK FROM AN EMAIL TO A SUPPOSEDLY SECURE SITE
Chances are it is not!

By the way if you did click that link it looks like a very good replica of Paypal, but ask yourself these questions:

# 1. Why is the color of the address bar still the same, Paypals secure bar is not a white background, but more a beige color, which incidentally matches a graphic bar on their website.

# 2. The Email address box on paypal is ALWAYS filled in with my email when I arrive at Paypals site, this copy website’s box is not showing any email at all.

# 3.The Whole page is Different.

# 4. In the Status Bar at the bottom of the screen there should be a Padlock for a secure website such as Paypal. If you look at Paypals login screens status bar it also says www.paypal.com then the padlock is shown.

Well, I hope this helps you to be more alert when checking your emails.

Have A Safe And Secure Day!!!

Steve Scully is a responsible business owner,communcations advisor and entrepreneur based in the UK.

Currently online to help people to understand the new technology of voice over internet protocol or voip, and the use of web conferencing software. web conferencing blog at http://www.hotconferenceuk.com/alerts

The first thing people think about when defending their computers and networks is an up-to-date antivirus program. Without this most basic protection, your computer will get a virus, which could just slow it down or potentially bring the pc to a complete standstill!

So anti-virus software is the answer?
An anti-virus solution on it’s own is not the answer to all of your problems, it can only protect you so much; in fact test have shown that a new pc running Windows XP if left connected to the Internet unprotected will be infected with viruses and remotely controlled via unauthorised persons within 20 minutes! To protect you against hackers and often to prevent spyware and ‘scumware’ from communicating directly with their servers about information it may have picked up from your pc, a firewall should form the key part of your e-security solution. Previously, the targets of hackers were large institutions, banks and government organisations; now hackers try to steal your personal information, including bank details and passwords directly from your PC on a daily basis.

But perhaps you don’t consider that your data is particularly valuable?
You will be the one who suffers the consequences when it is destroyed, and these consequences are usually expressed in economic terms. If you lose your data, you will have to pay someone to try and recover it for you, and if your computer is illegally hijacked and used to attack others, then you will also have to handle any legal issues that may result from this.

What will a firewall do to limit the danger to your systems?
A decent firewall is sometimes referred to as a ‘choke-point’ or ‘bridge’. Every piece of data that comes into your network has to go through the firewall in order that data of undesirable content and unauthorised users cannot gain access to your computer or network.

A good firewall will also hide the fact from others, that you are actually connected to the Internet, stopping software that pings, sniffs and queries IP addresses in the hope of finding a system to attack.

A firewall will cloak me, but which one do I need?
There are two different types of firewall available for you to use; a software firewall that is loaded onto your computer and a hardware firewall. In truth, both types are software, but the hardware one is a dedicated firewall appliance, whose only job is to perform firewall functionality. A clear advantage of a hardware firewall, is that if you happen to install some sort of maleware or virus on your system, it cannot take over your firewall.

Unified Threat Management firewall functionality
Unified Threat Management products are defined as those that act as firewalls, include intrusion detection and protection, and also deal with viruses.

Does your current firewall perform content filtering, spam filtering, intrusion detection and anti-virus duties? All of these functions are usually on a number of different pieces of hardware, taking up valuable space in your server racks. The technology within business grade firewalls has become considerably more robust recently, and paved the way to add these additional, but vital functions to the one appliance.

The administration time has been cut significantly, as there is only one appliance; product selection is quicker and easier, as is product integration and ongoing support. With only one appliance, troubleshooting also becomes a lot less of an issue. If the firewall were to fail, then only one piece of hardware needs to be swapped out; which means that your business can be back up and running faster.

Winding up
In conclusion a good firewall should do the following things:

• Protect your personal data
• Protect your computers resources
• Protect your reputation and that of your business
• Protect your liability
• Ideally be capable of Unified Threat Management

Rob Green is the CEO of Century Computing Support Services, a WatchGuard Firewall Expert Partner, who provide both business grade hardware and software firewalls at http://www.firebox.uk.com. Fill in the contact form at http://www.firebox.uk.com/catalog/contact_us.php to sign up for the Century Computing newsletter.

Spyware, viruses and worms… oh my!

If you are connected to the internet, you need to make sure you get your computer set up properly if you want to avoid problems down the road.

With all the viruses, spyware and other threats on the internet today, no computer should be set up without the proper protection.

And that protection needs to be in place as soon after you hook up your new machine as possible.

The following five steps will make your computer a much harder target for threats. You still won’t be completely immune to problems, but 99% of the time the threat will pass you by, looking for the easy mark.

1. Running a Personal Firewall

A personal firewall is software that basically makes your computer invisible to hackers, worms and other threats that can infect your computer over the internet.

Setting up a firewall is the absolute first thing you should do if you’re going to connect to the internet. Without a firewall, your computer could get infected in as little as one minute after connecting.

If you have a brand new computer running Windows XP Service Pack 2, there is a firewall built into Windows. It will already have been turned on when you first set up your computer.

If you’re running an older version of Windows, even an earlier version of Windows XP, there is no firewall automatically set up for you. In this case there are two possibilities:

• Your computer came pre-loaded with a firewall such as Norton Internet Security or McAfee Internet Security
• You have no firewall installed and should download one ASAP.

If you don’t have any personal firewall software installed, you should do so right away. Zone Alarm is a very good firewall program that has a version that you can download and install for free.

You can download the free version of Zone Alarm from http://www.computer-help-squad.com/zonealarm.

2. Turn on Windows Updates

Again, if you’re running Windows XP Service Pack 2 this is already set up, but otherwise you should turn on Windows Updates. Microsoft releases updates for security problems and other bugs in Windows on a regular basis.

These updates will keep your computer running better, and they often fix security issues that could compromise your information or privacy.

If you are running Windows XP Service Pack 2, you can double-check that automatic updates are turned on by clicking Start, then click Control Panel, then double-click Security Center. The window that opens will tell you if automatic updates are turned on, and lets you turn them on if they’re not.

To turn on automatic updates in earlier versions of Windows XP, click on the Start menu, click Control Panel and then double-click on System. On the "Automatic Updates" tab, click the option to "Automatically download the updates and install them on the schedule I specify."

To turn them on in Windows 2000, click on Start, click Control Panel and then double-click on Automatic Updates. Again, click the option to "automatically download the updates and install them on the schedule I specify."

Now when Microsoft releases updates, they will be downloaded for you automatically and Windows will tell you when they are ready to be installed.

3. Install & Update Antivirus Software

Most new computers come with antivirus software these days. You might have Norton, McAfee, PC-Cillin or another brand. No matter what program you have, you will need to update it when you get connected to the internet.

It doesn’t matter how new your computer is - there will be new viruses, and new updates for the antivirus software, since it was loaded.

The exact process is different for each brand of antivirus program, but most of them will have an icon in the bottom right corner of your desktop, beside the time. The icon might be a picture of a shield (McAfee), a stethoscope (Norton) or something else.

In most cases, if you point to the icon for your antivirus and click the right mouse button, a menu will pop up with an update option. It could be simply called update or could be something like Live Update or Download Latest Updates. If you click on the update option (with the left button this time) it will install the newest updates for you.

If you’re not sure which icon is for your antivirus software, just point to each one for a few seconds and a little title should pop up telling you what it is.

4. Install Anti-Spyware Software

Spyware - and other things known as adware and malware - is becoming as big a problem as viruses. Spyware programs can cause a lot of problems with your computer, not to mention they can track your personal information and you never know where it’s being sent.

Some new computers might includes antispyware software, but most of them don’t yet. There are quite a few anti-spyware programs available, some free and some not. The one I recommend is from Microsoft and is one of the free ones.

One of the reasons I like it is because it always runs in the background and will automatically catch a lot of spyware before it gets on your computer.

Many of the other programs don’t catch it until you run a scan. Not only does this allow things to get on your computer, it also means you have to actually remember to run a scan.

You can download the free Microsoft Antispyware from http://www.computer-help-squad.com/antispyware.

5. Set up a Free Email Account

This last item is not as critical as the first four, but I would highly recommend you set up an email account with one of the free services like Hotmail or Gmail.

Once you’re on the internet, you’ll find a lot of useful information that you want that requires you to provide an email address. In some cases, these people will end up sending you a bunch of spam.

If you use a free email account to sign up for anything that you don’t know for sure you can trust, it’s not going to fill your main email with a bunch of junk.

This goes for anything really, not just online information. If you’re entering a contest or signing up for anything offline and you don’t know where your information could end up being used, I would suggest using your free email address.

If worse comes to worse, and your free email address gets inundated with spam, you can always just set up a new one and let the old one expire.

Some of the better free email services are www.hotmail.com, www.gmail.com and www.yahoomail.com.

If you’ve had your computer for a while and never done any of these things, you should still take these steps to get it set up properly. It will definitely save you a lot of time - and possibly money - as you use your system.

John Lenaghan offers easy-to-understand computer help at the Computer Help Squad website. Find out more about these 5 steps - sign up for the Computer Help Squad newsletter and receive your free 5-part guide.

Business on the internet is getting down right shameless. This week, my email box was literally filled with hype, overly inflated promises, phish mail, scams, ezines I did not order, and about 14 viagra gimmicks. This makes you wonder what your going to get if you click in the wrong place. What’s worse is you may get the same thing several times from different people.

Did you know that there is software on the internet that can find duplicates of your personal work? If you didn’t, then believe me, eventually you will own it. Plagiarism is becoming quite popular on the internet these days. You would think that people have used up all the original ideals.

Every once in a while I’ll stumble onto a site that I’ve seen before. The names are changed and the scenery may have changed a little. What is bad is some of the sites don’t even do a good job at covering up the fact that they copied another persons work.

At the bottom of most web sites you may see copy right information. This is becoming quite popular. However, it only slows people down. It doesn’t appear to stop them. That should not be your only worry.

It was once stated to me that if it’s on the web, it’s yours for the taking. This is the most ridiculous statement I’ve ever heard. The simple fact that someone can copy and paste doesn’t make it right. Another problem is people steeling from you. That may be a hard word but it’s the truth.

Have you seen affiliate sites before? Most all the affiliates have a unique “url” that is suppose to identify them as being the one whom gets the commission. The problem is, most people that has any experience what so ever can change the “url” and steel your commission.

It doesn’t stop there. Ebooks used to have value. Well some do. I’ve actually witnessed several ebooks selling on Ebay for 99 cents that have copy rights. Is it illegal for me to buy them? I would say not. I did not break the law. Should I turn in the seller? I have done this before.

You may be wondering if everything on the internet is a scam. I assure you that there are legitimate companies out there in cyberspace that have the my up most respect. I have also wondered if Bill Gates was behind some of these viruses. You know you are running a great risk if you don’t buy software to take care of these.

Well, lets evaluate. If you want to start a business, the first thing you should do is forget about the word “FREE”. Just to get online, you’ll definitely need virus detector software. You’ll also need some kind of spy ware killing software. Let’s not stop there. If you plan on stopping people from stealing from you, you’ll need that software that will catch plagiarizers. You’ll also want to spend the money to copy right your stuff. Just putting the words on the bottom of a page doesn’t mean it’s copy right does it?

If you plan on trading links, you want to get some software that will do a check to see if the your link partner didn’t sucker you. It does the partner a bit more justice to have links to him and not away from him.

It doesn’t stop there though. You still need your site “Secure”. If you don’t know what that is, chances are, you’ll eventually figure out why some people are not doing business with you. I witnessed some site telling you that you are on a secure site, but when you look at the “http” there is a missing “S” on the end which assures you that it’s secure.

Don’t forget to encrypt your web site. Whoops, did I mention this also costs money? It may not if you are a programmer. However, if your not careful, there are other programmers that love a challenge of figuring out how to unscramble web sites?

Have you heard of “scanners” before? I’m not talking about those “scanners” at the drug store, super mart of police station. I talking about those scanners that act like spiders on the web. Those scanners are looking for security leaks or holes in your personal computer. You do have a firewall don’t you?

People still insist on telling others that it doesn’t take any money on the internet to start a business. All of this is just for your own protection. You haven’t even started your business yet.

There is some good news. I am sure you can find a “host” that will give you a secure site with all the bells and whistles. I have not been that lucky.

Add it all up and tell me what it’ll cost to start a business on the internet. You are paying for an Independent Service Provider per month aren’t you?

Okay, you can get virus software that will take care of the spy ware, the worms, the security leaks and the viruses. You can get a host real reasonable that will take care of your encryption needs and security. You can also get link checkers, payment processors, plagiarize finders, and copy cat software. You can even get some Free email services. The bottom line is it’ll cost you some money.

Don’t forget to get an email blocker. Spam will never stop in my opinion.

This is just my opinion. Anything I’ve said here is for your own entertainment. I know people getting their identities stolen because they did not protect themselves. I get phish email all the time trying to trick me into giving my passwords. If you are a complete newbie, it may be best to hire a guru. At least when they rip you off, you’ll have someone other than yourself to blame.

Did you know that most Gurus don’t tell you about these dangers?

Randall Stafford
http://www.randallsquare.com

Copyright 2005 RS Marketing News

Randall Stafford usually writes about health issues, fitness, and things that deal with people. After hearing so many times that doing business on the internet costs virtually nothing, he decided to give his opinion. Are the best things in life FREE?

You are welcome to reprint this is you leave this resource box and leave all contents the same. http://www.randallsquare.com

Phishing is the act of some individual sending an email to a user in an attempt to scam the user to release personal information. Is it easy to determine if it’s a scam? Sometimes – but not always. I hope to give you enough examples and information to help you to safeguard yourself from these unsavory individuals.

In addition, sometimes the email is sent to malicious software so as to render your computer helpless. Thus, it is important that you do not click on the link they provide, because that is the trigger that will load the software to your system.

EXAMPLES OF PHISHING

You receive hundreds of emails in your mailbox, but one email catches your eye – it directs you to a website, requesting that you need to update your personal information. It requests such personal information as:

passwords
credit card numbers
social security number
bank account numbers

“It appears to be legitimate”, you say to yourself. And you also notice that the emails are from companies that you have been doing business with for a while. Warning: The website could be bogus.

Here are several examples of phishing in action.

1. E-mails stating they are from E-bay and they feel that your account may have been compromised and would like you to verify your information with they so conveniently supply. DO NOT click on it.

2. E-mails from Paypal or your bank asking that you verify your information because they feel that your account has been compromised, or heaven forbid, suspended. Same scenario, different company. DO NOT click on the link.

3. E-mail that states that an unauthorized transaction has occurred on your account. Please click the link below and confirm your identity. DO NOT.

4. Here’s a work at home scam – We have seen your resume on Monster and feel you would fit our position. If you are interested, please go to our website, look over the experience required and submit your resume if you have this background. Website is professional looking, offer looks good – but it could be a scam.

WHAT ARE THEY AFTER

In the above examples they are after information about you, be it passwords, credit cards, social security numbers, anything that can identify you – and that which they can use to profit from you.

The job email is used to verify that the email address is a true blue, active email address. What do they do with this info – they sell these accounts to spammers for good money. They need to verify your email address—because if the spammers come up empty – this person’s business is dead.

HOW TO VERIFY SAFELY

1. If they want you to verify your account, do not cut and paste, or use the link they provide in the email. Close your Internet session, open a new session and enter the site that you have on record to verify.

2. Emails requesting resumes – Verify their account before you send your resume. When verifying – these red flags should be considered:

1) If they are hesitant to provide a phone number – might be a scam. 2) If their business address is not verifiable –might be a scam. 3) If the website is new – might be a scam. 4) If they use a large company’s name—and that company never heard of them – might be a scam. 5) Again, verify this information before you send your resume.

WAYS TO PROTECT YOURSELF

Here are some quick tips to protect you and your computer system.

1. Use anti-virus software and a firewall – keep them up to date.

2. If you have a broadband connection make sure you have a firewall in place.

3. Don’t email personal or financial information.

4. Before providing personal information – search to see if the site is secure – look for a lock icon. However, remember not all phishers are stupid – in fact, they could be computer savvy enough to forge security icons. Thus, look for a site whose link looks like this: https://www.somename.com — this shows that it is a secure site.

5. Coupons from respected companies – Verify that it is a true-blue coupon from the company – I had one coupon sent to my email address from what I thought was Staples. Verified it with Staples – not a coupon honored by Staples. When on the Internet – if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it still may not be a duck!

6. When making transactions on the Internet – be it online banking, Paypal, Internet Gold, etc. – complete your transaction, log out of the website, and close out of your Internet Explorer—and then continue with a new session of Internet Explorer.

WHERE TO FORWARD SPAM THAT IS PHISHNG

If you encounter spam that is phishing, or are a victim of a phishing scam, you can forward the information to spam@uce.gov and to the company, bank or organization that the email may have stated they are from. In many cases, the other organizations have information on their website where you can report the attempted scam.

In addition, if you have been scammed, and you wish to file a complaint – go to ftc.gov.

To conclude, no one is immune to spam or a scam. But try to be ever vigilant and do your due diligence with anything you do on the Internet. But being human is a scammer’s hope – they know that most will ignore the bait, but some will be tempted. So, if you so humanly slip, and succumb to a phishing scam, you can report them to ftc.gov.

Vickie J Scanlon has a BBA degree in Administrative Management and Marketing. Visit her site at: http://www.myaffiliateplace.biz for free tools, articles, ebooks, how to info, affiliate opportunities, products and services – to meet your budget and needs.

As you know, this time the virus under the name Sobig.F has wreaked quite havoc! No doubt, many of us have suffered from this recent virus outbreak.

According to an online poll conducted by CNN: 32% of respondents were infected with this malicious virus. At the pick, each of every 17 emails contained sobig.F! Internet service provider AOL says it scanned 40.5 million emails and found the virus in more than half of them. Sobig accounted for 98 percent of all viruses found in these emails.

What is Sobig.F virus?

This is a worm type of virus. Which means it is an executable program that installs enhancement to your Windows operating system. The ‘F” implies that it is the sixth of the family of Sobig viruses. The first one was launched in the beginning of this year. The latest attack was started on August 19.

According to some experts, Sobig.F was first posted to a porn Usenet group and spread from there. It is timed to deactivate itself on September 10. The pre-built deactivation mechanism itself is a worrisome factor. Most experts think this means there are more to come!

How it works?

Sobig.F comes along with an email with subject headers like Your details, Thank you!, Re: Thank you!, Re: Details, Re: Re: My details, Re: Approved, Re: Your application, Re: Wicked screensaver or Re: That movie. The body of the message is quite short and usually contains either "See the attached file for details" or "Please see the attached file for details."

Once the file is opened, Sobig.F resends itself using a built-in mailing program to e-mail addresses from the infected computer. As a sender is address it shows one of the e-mails randomly selected from the computer’s address book. The worm was also supposed to attempt to retrieve an URL from a predetermined list of 20 master servers on a certain date and time. The content of that URL was to be downloaded and executed on the infected machines. Luckily those servers were identified right away and shut down.

How to protect yourself against it?

If your computer is infected or you have doubts, first thing you should do is: to check and clean up your computer from this virus. Although, it is set to deactivate on September 10, which means it will no longer multiply itself, however, left untouched, it might attempt to update itself, once the newer version of the virus comes out.

Suggestion One:

1. If you do not have latest version of anti-viruses installed, go to the Symantec’s following page: http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.sobig.f@mm.html,

2. Down load the Sobig.F removal tool for completely free of charge.

3. Install and run it by strictly following the steps described on the page.

Suggestion Two:

Download the latest security patches for your version of Windows and install them.

Suggestion Three:

If you are using Microsoft Outlook, follow the steps below to stop them appearing in your inbox:

- Open Outlook

- Click on “Tools“ from main menu

- Choose Rules Wizard from the drop down menu

- On the page “Apply changes to this folder“: Click on “New“

- Select “Start creating a rule from Templates“

- Choose “Move messages based on content”

- Click on “ specific words” link from the box at the bottom

- A small window will appear, add each and every phrase scrupulously

from the list below:

Re: Thank you!

Thank you!

Your details

Re: Details

Re: Re: My details

Re: Approved

Re: Your application

Re: Wicked screensaver

Re: That movie

And

your_document.pif

document_all.pif

thank_you.pif

your_details.pif

details.pif

document_9446.pif

application.pif

wicked_scr.scr

movie0045.pif

- Once finished click on “OK” to close the window.

- Click on the link “specified” at the same box

- Open a new folder by clicking on the “New” button under the

name “Virus Spam”

- Click on “OK”

- Click on “Finish”

- From now on all emails with the above mentioned phrases and

attachments will be moved to the “Virus Spam” folder.

- All you have to do is delete the emails, which will appear there.

A few more cautions:

Don’t open any executable attachment in an email, unless you are hundred percent sure that this is a legitimate file that you have been expecting.

Install an anti-virus program and update it on time, at the end, this might be the best possible solution to protect ourselves from these ugly online creatures!

Nowshade Kabir is the founder, primary developer and present CEO of Rusbiz.com – a Global B2B Exchange with solutions to create e-catalog, Web store, business process management and other features to run a business online. You can read various articles written by Nowshade Kabir at http://ezine.rusbiz.com.

Internet scams and frauds are on the rise! The quantity of scam emails with various fraud schemes any email account receives today is simply overwhelming! There is this infamous Nigerian 419 scam, which is by far the most widely circulated one. I wrote about it in one of our ezine articles not long ago. You can read about it here! And there are many other scams like Lottery, Letter of Credit, money transfer, black money conversion, real estate, fraudulent order and the list goes on and on.

Looking at my daily doze of scam letters, looks like, the lottery scam seams to be gaining popularity among the con artists. This scam is similar to other forward fee schemes, where the goal of the con artist is to persuade an unsuspected victim to send an advance payment for some dubious offers that the swindlers never plan to fulfill.

Email Lottery Scam

The subject of the emails from an unknown source to you will, probably show, something similar to, “Congratulation! You have own a lottery”. With minor variations the text in most of these letters is virtually identical.

The letter, usually, claims to be issued by a Lottery Company based in some countries like The Netherlands, Switzerland, England, Canada or the USA.

And then it says that you are one of many people randomly chosen from all over the world to participate in a lottery of a very large sum. You along with some others have won this lottery. You will be asked to contact them immediately to claim your prize money. Most certainly, the letter will also warn you to keep this as a secret and will specify that the offer has a time limit.

If you contact them after receiving this letter; there are number of variation how the thugs will try to swindle you. They are quite imaginative and sometimes very innovative in their endeavors.

In general the idea is – you have to pay a fee before the lottery company can release the amount to you. The pretexts are, usually, an investigation company has to make sure that you are the right person who won the lottery, as a foreigner you have to pay a tax before you can get your prize and there is a processing and handling fee that has to be paid before hand, etc.

Don’t think that these dubious offers are only sent by emails. People received them by regular mails, by direct phone calls and even by SMS.

Phone Call Lottery Scam

One fine morning you may receive a call from a person, claiming to be a lawyer from a prestigious law farm, and will tell you that you have won a foreign lottery; that a processing fee is due before the prize money can be released to you. The seniors are most likely to be the victims of these telemarketers. If you are located in the USA, most likely, the person will introduce himself as a Canadian lawyer and will inform you as if you have won a Canadian Provincial Lottery.

Lottery Scam by SMS

You may even receive a SMS message advising that you have won a foreign lottery. You will be instructed to log onto a website and enter a login and password, which would be provided to you in the message. The site will have the same look and feel of a legitimate lottery site, but in fact, it is a copy site created by the scammers. The URL address will have a very minor, virtually, unnoticeable difference. Once you log in and see for yourself that you have really own the lottery, you will be asked to forward a gaming tax of US $100 to US $500 before you claim your prize.

How to identify these scams and avoid being conned?

The number one motto that you should follow is – if it is too good to be true, then probably, it is indeed too good to be true! There is no way you can win a lottery, in what you have never participated!

The followings are the signs of probable scam offers, you will be better off if you avoid them scrupulously:

Any offer, where you have to send cash upfront to redeem you prize.

Any offer of a substantial percentage of a large sum of money to be transferred into your account, in return for your "discretion" or "confidentiality";

Requests for signed and stamped, blank letterhead or invoices, or for bank account information;

Requests for payment in advance of transfer taxes or other fees; Statements that your name was provided to the soliciting party either by someone you do not know or by "a very reliable contact;"

Unsolicited calls asking if you would like to be in a "Lottery pool";

Mail notifying you that you have already won a substantial sum of money.

Nowshade Kabir is the founder, primary developer and present CEO of Rusbiz.com – a Global B2B Exchange with solutions to create e-catalog, Web store, business process management and other features to run a business online. You can read various articles written by Nowshade Kabir at http://ezine.rusbiz.com.

It seems that nowadays cybercriminals prefer cash to fun. That is why malicious programs of various kinds (viruses, worms, Trojan horses, etc.) are very often aimed at stealing valuable — in a direct sense of this word — private and financial information. When written, these programs are spread all over the Web.

What do means of their distribution have in common? Thinking a bit about it will help us ordinary Web users realize how to behave online and what to avoid.

Let’s use logic and good old common sense. What do you think are the most suitable (for a criminal)means to spread malicious code? The answer is almost obvious. It is something which, first,ensures his anonymity and, second, offers victims (i.e. us) very little or no protection against malware. Last, but not least — this means should be very cheap or, even better, free.

(I’ll confine myself to mentioning only those means which endanger EVERY Internet user. Not everyone exchanges files or downloads music and freeware. But is there anybody who doesn’t send and recieve email or visit websites?)

Well, if you were a cybercriminal who wanted to spread a malicious program quickly and as widely as possible, how would you distribute it?

What first comes to mind? First, sending contaminated emails through spam. It is possible (and not too difficult for, say, a programmer) to enclose virtually anything into the attachment. With more effort, a programmer can create a message without any attachments that will infect a PC anyway.

Though many email service providers offer basic anti-virus protection, they aren’t obliged to do it. How effective this protection is — that’s another question.

Besides, spam is very cheap to distribute. Of course, spammers of all stripes don’t use their own machines. Why should they? They prefer PCs which became remotely controlled after being infected with a special program. Cybercriminals build huge networks of such machines and hire them out to spammers. Using "bots" (they are also called "zombies" or "slave computers") gives a spammer so valued anonymity — spam messages come to frustrated PC users from IP addresses registered somewhere on the other side of the globe.

What about other possibilities? Websites. Malicious websites are very dangerous.Cybercriminals create them exclusively to execute malicious code on the visitors’ computers. Sometimes hackers infect legitimate sites with malicious code.

When unsuspecting users visit malicious sites, various nasty applications are downloaded and executed on their computers. Unfortunately, more and more often these applications contain keyloggers–software programs for stealing information.

Keyloggers, as it is clear from the name of the program, log keystrokes –but that’s not all. They capture everything the user is doing — keystrokes, mouse clicks, files opened and closed, sites visited. A little more sophisticated programs of this kind also capture text from windows and make screenshots (record everything displayed on the screen) — so the information is captured even if the user doesn’t type anything, just opens the views the file.

Blogs can be contaminated with malware, too. In April experts from Websense Security Labs warned users that they discovered hundreds of these "toxic" (contaminated with malcode) blogs set by hackers. Blogs are suitable for them: there are large amounts of free storage space, no identity authentication is required to post, and there is no scan of posted files for viruses, worms, or spyware in most blog hosting services.

Three months passed, and here is the quote from a new Websense report released this Monday, July, 25th : "hackers are using free personal Web hosting sites provided by nationally- and internationally-known ISPs to store their malicious code…" This July Websense detected that these sites are used for this purpose much more often. The company’s senior director of security and technology research said that "in the first two weeks alone we found more instances than in May and June combined." By all means it’s a tendency, and a very disturbing one.

Such sites are free and easy-to-create. With the average lifespan of between two and four days, they are difficult to trace. Free hosting services rarely offer even basic security tools. Short-lived websites,no files scanning for viruses, nothing prevents "authors" form uploading executable files – isn’t such a site an ideal tool for distributing malicious code?

Anonymity of the creator — no end user protection — no cost. What else can a cybercriminal wish? That is why there was the outbreak of "toxic blogs" in April - and that’s why infested free websites are multiplying so quickly now.

But how to contaminate as many computers as possible? It is the aim of cybercriminals, isn’t it? The more traffic, the more programs lands on end users’ computers. Hackers attract traffic to malicious websites by sending a link through spam or spim (the analog of spam for instant messaging (IM).

They are ingenious in finding new ways to make people open an attachment or click on a link to visit a certain website, though people are constantly told not to follow links in spam.

Just some of their dodges — disguising infected spam emails as CNN news alerts, subject lines with "breaking news" like "Osama bin Laden caught", "Michael Jackson tried to commit suicide". How about celebrities in the nude? Just click! And, one of the latest, an "amateur video" that ostensibly shows London bombing sights.

These (and similar) tricks are usually called social engineering. Online criminals have become good psychologists — the big bucks which crimes like online bank fraud can bring turned them into earnest students.

However, there is one thing that spoils the mood of those who spread malicious programs.

To hackers’ deep regret, people become more aware of the risks they face in the Internet. A study by Pew Internet and American Life Project released on July 6th shows that:

91% (!) of respondents (adult Internet users from the U.S.) changed their behavior online one or way another. 81 % have become more cautious about e-mail attachments 48 % have stopped visiting certain websites which are said to be harboring malicious programs People stop using file-sharing software (25%) and even start using Mozilla, Firefox or other browser instead of Internet Explorer (18%)

Well done! Actually, there is nothing left for us users but to become more conscious of the threats and more cautious in the Web. Every PC user has to care for his information himself, protecting his own computer against numerous data-stealing programs of all sorts.

But don’t you think that protection against various malicious programs shouldn’t be only end users’ private business? It is up to service providers to offer at least basic protection for end users and break this "triad" (Anonymity of the creator — little or no end user protection — little or no cost) which enables all this crap to spread so easily.

Alexandra Gamanenko currently works at Raytown Corporation, LLC — an independent software developing company that provides various products and services for information security. Software aimed at making identity theft impossible, services like protected email and protected Web hosting are only small part of what this company offers.

Learn more — visit the company’s website http://www.anti-keyloggers.com

If you know what is the ‘Fishing’ then it’s very easy to understand the definition of ‘Phishing’. Just replace letter ‘F’ from the word Fishing with ‘Ph’. Yes I am not joking. I mean it! Phishing is higher level of spam. Phishing is nothing but fishing in the sea of Internet. The victimized Net users are the fishes hooked by the hackers.

Phishing & Spoof Web sites

The role of hacker is to lure the innocent Netizens by sending an e-mail from spoof sites, pseudo claiming to be an legitimate enterprise in an attempt to force the user into surrendering private information such as password, credit card number, and social security number etc; which will be used for identity theft.

The hyperlink in the e-mail directs the innocent user to a spoof Web site where they are asked to enter personal information like passwords, social security, and bank account numbers. Basically hackers create Spoof Web sites to steal the user’s personal information.

The Idea Behind Spoof Sites

I can give you the well-known example in which users received Spam e-mails from hackers misleading innocent users. As if these mails came from eBay, claiming that the user’s account was about to be suspended unless he clicked on the hyperlink in the e-mail and update the credit card information hold by the genuine eBay web site. The idea behind this scam is very simple as it is relatively simple to make a Web site look like a legitimate site. That is why the Phishing is also called brand spoofing.

Tips To Stop Phishing & Report Phishing

* If you smell anything fishy (phishy) or if you received an e-mail that appears to be from your bank requesting you click a hyperlink in the e-mail and verify your online banking information. Simply delete such e-mail and make it thumb rule… never click that hyperlink in the e-mail.

* Contact your bank or financial institution on phone and confirm whether it has sent you such type of e-mail.

* Report Phishing to Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

* Send Internet Phishing scam reports to local authorities like police and crime bureau.

* Send details of a Phishing scam to the Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG) to help them to build database of Phishing scams, and to alert the Netizens.

* Last but not the least if you can’t afford to neglect or you are tempted to think that the hyperlink in the received e-mail is worth to click… take a deep breath, think twice before clicking that suspicious hyperlink and copy and paste the URL (hyperlink) into the web browser’s address field and log on. This will help you to land on legitimate Web site instead of spoof Web site.

Popular Targets Of Phishers

1) Banks & Financial Institutions.

2) Credit card companies.

3) Auction portals.

4) Online stores.

5) Online stock trading companies.

How To Smell Phishing?

It is very difficult for e-mail recipients to guess what they have in their mailbox. They can’t guess Whether it is legitimate e-mail from an organization With whom they do transactions. Although the "From" Field of the e-mail may have the web site address of That organization, and the hyperlink may also appear, If the sender insists on clicking that hyperlink and Unfortunately you click that hyperlink you will land To a spoof Web site. To avoid this situation you must Have that sense to smell something fishy (phi shy) Because any legitimate web site never ask you to Update your personal information simply by sending a Hyperlink through the e-mail, use your commonsense and Ask yourself a simple question, why the legitimate web Site would ask you to update your personal information through a hyperlink via e-mail, since that organization has its own legitimate web site? I hope you have got the answer.

Krishna Pai is a webmaster and a writer. Get Internet Security tips, Computer Tutorials, reviews, Hardware & Software Tips, How to guides at

http://www.cheapest-computer-hardware-software.com/

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The Threat

10 years ago you could probably have run no Internet security applications and still have come out after a browse of the Internet with a virus and malware free computer, but this situation is no longer apparent. Several years ago, before I knew of the dangers of the Internet, I had absolutely no spyware or adware protection. After about 3 months of heavy Internet browsing, I decided to install Adaware Personal Edition and Spybot Search & Destroy, and after 1 scan of each, I truly realised the potential of the Internet. After just 3 moths of Internet browsing, I had gathered over 9000 different spyware and adware products. So if I can gather 9000 unwanted products in 3 months with only web browsing, what about all the people who constantly surf, download and install, and havn’t scanned their PC for malware in over a year?

That’s right. Viruses are not restricted to movies and the news anymore. Adware is not only for those who install illegal software. In 2004, adwarereport.com reported that over 70 percent of home PCs are today infected unknowingly by spyware and that over 80 percent are infected by adware. I am willing to garantee you that 9 out of 10 people who read this article have at least 1 form of adware or spyware on their PC. Now if that isn’t a threat to your PC than I don’t know what is.

What will it do?

So now you’re saying, "So what if I have spyware or adware. How much harm could it do?". That’s a reasonable question, considering one of the reasons adware has been ignored for so long is its lack of severe harm. Adware slows your computer, it slows your Internet, it displays a popup every once in a while, but really it does no harm to personal files or hardware. Both adware and spyware breach privacy, but personal data rarely reaches anyone but untargeted advertisers so SPAM and advertising are the only real problems.

Therefore, it is logical to say that adware and spyware are not as serious a threat as malicious viruses and trojans, but they are a threat all the same.

Scanning and removing adware and spyware

With the mass realisation of the threat of adware and spyware in the last couple of years, there is now literally hundreds of spyware and adware removers online.

The most respected and thorough scanners for adware and spyware are Lavasoft Ad-aware and Spybot Search and Destroy. Both are free and are known to be much better then most of their costly counterparts. Microsoft Anti-Spyware is quickly increasing in popularity but is currently in Beta stages. Several other notable scanners include Spysweeper, BPS Spyware & Adware Remover and PestPatrol.

I personally recommend you scan about once a month with both Spybot Search and Destroy as well with Lavasoft Adaware Personal Edition.

Links

Lavasoft Ad-aware : http://www.lavasoftusa.com/

Spybot S&D :http://spybot.eon.net.au/en/

References

www.adwarereport.com

Soroush King is a certified programmer, adept in VB, C++, Delphi, as well as web developer and scripter, having considerable knowledge of both PHP and Perl. He also owns and manages several professional websites.

This article was originally published at http://www.articlesandtools.com/adware.php For more information on computer security visit http://www.articlesandtools.com.

If you would like to use this article anywhere else, please just notify me by sending an email to kingofkings@gmail.com (you don’t have to wait for a response, as this is just a notification, not permission). Please refer on the page that the author of the article was I, Soroush King, and also please note that the article was originally published at http://www.articlesandtools.com/adware.php by providing a link.