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Phishing

Avoiding Common Email Security Threats

Most companies today rely heavily on the use of email. Emailing is a very fast and cost effective form of communication for many different types of businesses.

Most companies use it as their main source of communication between employees. In fact, most employers do not realize the risk of using email.

Some risks range from viruses, hackers, to someone else just trying to gain a little information.

Here’s an overview of the most common email security threats in today’s Internet world.

Viruses
Viruses cause billions of dollars in damage to businesses every year.

Many corporate email systems are still quite vulnerable to viruses. In fact, in last year alone, an estimated 63 distinct email virus attacks hit the United States. These attacks come quickly and can spread quickly.

They mainly cause slowdowns across the internet. However some have been known to take down major corporation’s entire email systems.

Today’s viruses are very complex and often appear to be harmless such as personal notes, jokes, or promotions. While most viruses require recipients to download attachments in order to initiate infection and spread, some are designed to launch automatically with absolutely no user action required.

Spam
Studies have shown that 20 percent of corporate email is spam. A company that has a thousand employees could receive over two billion spam emails in a full year.

Most do not realize it until a lack of productivity ends up costing the companies billions of dollars each year.

While most spam is just annoying, some of it can be very dangerous. Most trick employees into opening malicious emails to spread faster. Also, many hackers have begun disguising viruses as spam.

Phishing
Phishing is used to trick a person into thinking the email is legit and came from a real website, usually asking the person to verify their password or to change some sort of account information.

Then, taking them to a fake website and stealing what you have typed in. This is the number one way people get their identity and personal information stolen.

Spyware
The main purpose of spyware is to install itself on the victim’s computer. It monitors all key strokes and mouse clicks so that they can later go back and collect usernames, passwords, credit card numbers and bank account numbers.

These infections can stay installed on computers for many months without an antivirus picking them up.  Most are detected and removed instantly if the user keeps their antivirus up to date.

Having a great antivirus that scans files as well as emails can help prevent virus attacks, phishing and spyware.

Users should also have an up to date spam filter that prevents the infection from getting to your inbox to begin with. And most importantly never open an email attachment you didn’t specifically request.

Also, pay attention to links inside emails that appear legitimate. Many times, phishers will send you an email that looks like it came from an official source. After clicking the links, you’re redirected to a site on the hacker’s network. This is often used to collect personal information and passwords.

New Phishing Schemes You Should Know About

I know growing up as a child, I loved to go fishing. I never caught very many fish, but just being out on the water “drowning worms” was good enough for me. As the years have passed, though, a new kind of “phishing” has emerged.

The term phishing refers to luring techniques used by identity thieves to fish for personal information in a lake of unsuspecting Internet users.

Their purpose is to take this information and use it for criminal objectives such as identity theft and fraud.

Phishing is a general term for the creation and use by criminals of emails and websites – designed to look like they come from well-known, legitimate and trusted businesses, financial institutions and government agencies – in an attempt to gather personal, financial and sensitive information.

These criminals deceive Internet users into disclosing their bank and financial account information or other personal data such as usernames and passwords.

Today a new form of phishing appears to be spreading through social websites such as Facebook. This new scam works like this.

As soon as you login to the site, it will steal your email and password and then log you into Facebook. Within a short period of time the system will automatically switch your password and block you from the site. It then begins to send the same URL to all of your Facebook friend’s inboxes.

As this spreads, the criminals gather thousands of email addresses and passwords before Facebook can stop all references to the website.

The scammers have developed a method to duplicate the scam immediately and the next thing you know they have four or five phishing scams going on at the same time all over Facebook. This allows them to gather hundreds of thousands of victims very quickly.

It is not known yet what these people intend to do with all these addresses, but you can almost guarantee that they will result in a malicious worm at some point. The potential to access a user’s financial information and accounts could result in the loss of millions of dollars.

Another form of phishing is called “in session” phishing. This form does not use email nor does it rely on the user having to be tricked into clicking on a link.

It works like this. Let’s say you go to your banking website that is secure. You login and take care of your business, then leaving that browser window open you innocently go to another website that has been compromised. All of a sudden a pop-up asks you to validate your login to continue your banking session.

Remember two things must happen in order for this scam to work. First, a website must be compromised and infected—the higher traffic the better, obviously.

Second, the downloaded malware must be able to identify whether or not the unknowing user is logged into a relevant website.

Most banking institutions have taken steps to prevent this. One step is having a rapid disconnect of an idle session.

But in order to be safe we would recommend closing all browser windows after you have visited a secure banking website.

In addition it is very important to keep your system free of all spyware, malware and viruses.

Tech Experts has certified technicians that clean these types of infections and malware from computers every day. We urge you to take advantage of our system checkup and cleaning service to keep your identity to yourself.

How To Keep Hackers At Bay

No one wants to have their network “hacked,” but what exactly can a hacker do?

Plenty, and you are right to be afraid!

One common way for hackers to access your network is through spyware or viruses, which are malicious programs written to imbed themselves into your network to gather private information, steal financial data, access passwords, e-mail addresses, and spread themselves to other users. But one of the most common ways for hackers to access your system is through e-mail, or spam e-mail to be more specific.

Phishing is when a hacker sends you a legitimate looking e-mail from a trusted source — like PayPal, your bank, eBay, or any number of other legitimate business web sites. These e-mails will tell you that your account is expired or will be closed if you don’t go to a designated web site and update or verify your account information.

Although you may have seen these e-mails before, be very careful! Hackers are brilliant at making not only the e-mail seem legitimate, but also at making the web site you go to look like the real thing.

If you fall prey to their scam, the site will gather your private information and then use that to access your bank account or to charge your credit card. To protect yourself, install a spam filter and NEVER open or respond to any e-mail requesting account verification. Instead, call the company. If it is a legitimate request, you can verify that with them over the phone.

How To Keep Hackers Away From Your Data

No one wants to have their network “hacked,” but what exactly can a hacker do? Plenty, and you are right to be afraid!

One common way for hackers to access your network is through spyware or viruses, which are malicious programs written to imbed themselves into your network to gather private information, steal financial data, access passwords, e-mail addresses, and spread themselves to other users.

But one of the most common ways for hackers to access your system is through e-mail, or spam e-mail to be more specific. Even if you have the latest anti-virus software installed, hackers are very clever at getting you to circumvent your anti-virus software through phishing e-mails.

Phishing is when a hacker sends you a legitimate looking e-mail from a trusted source — like PayPal, your bank, eBay, or any number of other legitimate business websites. These e-mails will tell you that your account is expired or will be closed if you don’t go to a designated website and update or verify your account information.

Although you may have seen these e-mails before, be very careful! Hackers are brilliant at making not only the e-mail seem legitimate, but also at making the website you go to look like the real thing.

If you fall prey to their scam, the site will gather your private information (usernames, passwords, accounts, etc.) and then use that to access your bank account or to charge your credit card.

To protect yourself, install a spam filter and NEVER open or respond to any e-mail requesting account verification. Instead, call the company. If it is a legitimate request, you can verify that with them over the phone.

Data Security And Theft Top IT Concerns For 2006, Continuing Into 2007

The number of personal records exposed in data security breaches surpassed 100 million this year.

So says the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, which has been keeping count ever since a high-profile data leak at information broker ChoicePoint in early 2005. It keeps track of thefts and losses of gear such as laptops, storage tapes and drives, as well as of hacking incidents and insiders who leak data.

The count climbed throughout 2006: Boeing, the Department of Veterans Affairs, Hewlett-Packard, McAfee, the University of California, and many others made headlines as a result of breaches.

Most incidents come to light because of laws requiring public notification of data loss in cases where data is unencrypted. In response, security companies are increasingly pitching encryption products for secure storage–for example, Seagate Technology is building it into its drives. Microsoft is also getting into the game: business versions of Windows Vista have a full-disk encryption feature called BitLocker.

But encryption technology still lacks usability, a panel of industry experts said at an event celebrating the 30-year anniversary of cryptography.

Meanwhile, banks and credit agencies are hawking credit-monitoring services. In September, researchers named several banks as a consumer’s best bet in terms of offering protection against identity theft.

Breaches are only one way people’s identities can be compromised. Phishing scams are getting more widespread, and fraudsters are getting trickier in their attempts to con Internet users. People with high incomes attract more phishing e-mails and lose more money to them than other Internet users, according to a November Gartner report.

Scammers are helped by an apparent influx of cross-site-scripting bugs. These Web security flaws could let attackers craft a URL that looks like it points to a trusted site, but serves up content from a third, potentially malicious site. This year, this type of bug was found in many popular Web sites and in Google’s search appliances.

Phishing shields are now common. Microsoft has built one into its latest browser, IE 7, and Mozilla offers a similar feature in Firefox 2.

Alternative approaches to combat phishing include a new DNS service, OpenDNS, whose free address-lookup service blocks phishing sites and other threats.

Yahoo added an antiphishing feature to its site that displays a custom image on the log-in screen to verify that it is indeed a Yahoo page.

But if confidential data isn’t exposed through data breaches or pilfered through a phishing scam, there’s still malicious software. Criminals are crafting more-targeted Trojan horse attacks that seek to sneak onto PCs through zero-day flaws, experts have warned. In addition, some malicious software is now designed to let cybercrooks surf into online banks with you to steal your money.

You could also be exposed while on the go. Privacy watchers warn that people carrying passports equipped with radio chips could have the information in the document read from a distance. The solution: keep the passport closed and in a foil bag.
— from CNET News Service