Saturday, September 18th, 2010 (
2 comments)
There are lots of tricks that bad guys use. I won't get into the reasons why people go to these lengths to trick innocent people (though money and rationalization are the short answers). More importantly, you need to be aware of the common scams so you don't fall for them like that lady in Oregon who lost $400,000 in a Nigerian scam!
Click the highlighted titles below to research each of these major scam varieties.
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Password Mugging
A disturbing new practice among websites and services is where they ask you for your user name and password to other sites. I call this "Password Mugging"
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Phishing
By far the most dangerous thing you'll find in e-mails is a lie. Sending a bogus e-mail to someone is generally called phishing, but can also be referred to as a Nigerian scam (depending on the goal of the e-mail). Learn to recognize and deal with phishing before it's too late.
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Nigerian Scam
Many people have lost thousands and even hundreds of thousands of dollars to the classic Nigerian Scam. Don't fall for it!
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Fake Alerts
Maybe you've done everything right and you're computer is sufficiently fortress-like, but then you or someone in your family falls for a simple scam that tricks them into directly installing the bad guy's virus! Learn how to spot and ignore fakes!
| Online Addiction: From gambling to surfing and online gaming, people can destroy themselves and others with online addiction. |
| Posting Online: The Internet never forgets anything completely. Make sure you don't make mistakes that will stick with you for the rest of your life. |
| Protecting Photos: The Internet never forgets anything completely. Make sure you don't make mistakes that will stick with you for the rest of your life. |
| Getting Tricked: You WERE doing fine... until someone convinced you to install a virus or give away your passwords. Don't fall for it! |
| Account Hijacking: One of the most common security risks today is people getting their accounts taken over and then used to trick their friends and family. |
| Trusting Webservices: An online service promises they'll 'Never abuse or misuse your data' and you believe them? Think again. |
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The “fake alerts” can be avoided if you’re the administrator on your computer. Give everyone else limited accounts, and set a password for the admin account. It’s also recommended by many security people that you yourself don’t use the admin account (or root if you’re a Linux user).
Good point Alfred. Note that the titles are links to far more in-depth articles, but I forgot to mention that anyway so thanks for the reminder!
How do you use credit if someone has lifelock
I’m not sure I understand your question, but Lifelock doesn’t do anything that would prevent someone from using or gaining credit that I’m aware of. In other words, use of Lifelock doesn’t affect credit.