2 Preventive Measures Against Cybercrime

Cybercrime is slowly emerging as a distinct crime separate from regular crimes such as murder, robbery and burglary. While cybercrime is a new crime, combating it has already proven to be a difficult challenge for police. Phishing, a technique used by criminals to reveal a user’s log-in details, has been around for awhile. The e-mail contains a web link telling the user to re-confirm their personal details such as their date of birth, mother’s maiden name or IP address. If the user clicks on the link, the fraudster may be able to view personal details such as credit card numbers, bank account details or other vital information. While this information may already be available to fraudsters through other means, the use of such technology by criminals has increased manifold in recent years. This technology which is called cybercrime was originally intended to combat illegal downloading of recordings from the internet. Cyber-crime in name then referred to illegal access to computer systems. However, cyber-crime has since evolved into a broad term for any illegal action that involves a computer. Since a lot of transactions involving computers are already taking place online, with the connection that is created via a website, it has been possible to commit a cybercrime using a technique like phishing. Phishing is a technique where a victim auctions personal information online. The fraudsters send emails to millions of people saying that they are representing a well-known bank, a fund or a charity. Those who click on the links within the email may well be victimized. Phishing is done through techniques such as haunted Ivory or fake cashiers checks. Checks usually bear the likeness of the bank and are usually simple and easy to copy. Any person able to afford the Ivory would obviously not be able to cash a cashiers check. Yet another phishing technique is to set up a fake website that will look just like the real website of the bank or fund in question. Once you type in your user name and password, it will either direct you to the correct website or fake websites. Since many users that actually have access to the phoney website know that they should confirm their login details to gain access to the ‘real’ one, they end up spending time and money out of their pocket. There have been instances when even large funds have been transferred to these phishing websites. It is difficult to trace these funds to their source, although many have been identified and stopped. Phishing is definitely becoming a bigger problem as time goes by. It is easier and faster now to spread phishing emails that include downloadable acyberware to let you know you are about to be infected. If you have been victimized by any of these scams, take action immediately. All US citizens are encouraged to contact their representative in their local or state legislature to voice their concern and concern for phishing attacks. A simple Google search will reveal a lot of sites that have reports on phishing scams. The Federal Trade Commission is against phishing scams general strikes and has published several guides on how to identify these scams. But watch out, these stalling techniques have been around for years by bribing officials to let them set up bogus websites and bombarding computer systems with fake information. Their goal is to prevent victims from finally getting wise to the threat of phishing. But even with this growing threat, it is best to take measures to protect yourself. Tips to protect yourself include: These simple steps will surely put you one step ahead of those phishing parasite. So, let’s begin. A good time to educate yourself about phishing is pre-dating when most people are still unaware of the dangers that lurk on the Internet. Here’s a few things you should know about phishing: – How many email users practice “caveat emptor” which allows they disclose their personal information so they are not victimized by a phisher? – How many people realize that by attempting to email dark web sites, keyloggers and other harmful codes, that they are revealing their personal information to third parties? – If keyloggers are installed on your computer, are there any signs of these unwanted programs running in the background, eating up your system resources and slowing down your computer? – If you notice that your system has all kinds of unwanted internet activity such as new browser pages that you did not create, you may need to use some of the various known threats to repair your computer. If you are a Windows user, there is a built in keylogger detector that is present in Windows Fire Control Panel. This component is enabled by default. There are many other components as well that you can use to detect and remove keyloggers. But before doing this you will want to learn more about keyloggers so you can properly approach this problem.