How To Avoid Online Scams

In the modern world,the internet has been proved and approved to be one of the most essential source of information,business growth,social interaction as well as a research platform for scholars.

However,the internet can be a dangerous ground with threats lurking around every corner with malicious programs and individuals seeking to compromise the whole system or steal personal information including banking information,credit card data e.t.c

Inorder to avoid becoming a victim of  online scammers,let us go through various forms of online scams.

Types Of  Online Scams

A. Viruses/Malware

A computer virus is a program basically tailored to attack or access information from the computer or device of its victim. This information can be accessed from your Pc in a variety of ways; in some cases these malware programs may pose as safe downloads while in other instances may infect files on popular doenload sites where their victims download them together with the content they desired. Alternatively,these programs can be established in your Pc by using a scripting language on a hijacked web page which at times may be difficult to detect.

NB: Use of emails has increased tremendously and many unscropolous people are using this as a loophole. Many people are tempted to open email attachments sent by their friends or co-workers without thinking about the dangers they may be exposing themselves into. That attachment may be the carrier of the malware that may haunt your privacy.

B. Phishing Scams

It is very obvious that the most dangerous cyber crimes are carried out by people and not robots or any other inhuman being of some kind. These are the people that will solicit and trick you into voluntarily giving up your account information. This art is perfected by use of emails or forged contacts from financial institutions warning you of an attempted attack or a possible threat and insisting you provide your identity information and your account information inorder to recover your account. The secret to this scam is that the email or website that you will fill your account information is not real and is cloned and thus by responding you create the security threat yourself. Beware!!

C. Keyloggers/Spyware

A Keylogger is a type of a surveilance software or spyware that has the capability of recording every keystroke you make to a log file usually hidden in the background of your keyboard.

A keylogger can record instant messages,emails and anything you type at anytime using your keyboard including your passwords and account numbers as you type them in.

Keyloggers hide on your Pc to record information about your browsing habits and reporting the information to advertisers. At times depending on thr nature of the spyware,it may also redirect your search engine requests and homepage to commercial sites inorder to maximize the authors profit.

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