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Raw Bytes Computer News KPBX FM 91.1 Radio National Public Radio Network Frank Delaney Producer Broadcast on Thursday Morning 7:35 AM During Morning Edition Support Public Radio ! The Theater Of the Mind |
In computer news this week Thursday, Nov. 4, 2004 |
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The protection you need on the
internet today - Part 5 – or Don’t surf in shark infested
waters ... Most of
us today do business transactions on the web. This can be anything from doing
actual online banking, to having an Ebay or Paypal or Amazon account. To get on the web you have to
have an email account, so you probably have some online communications with
your internet service provider, like MSN or Earthlink, AOL, or a local ISP. You get
kind of in the habit of having online communications with various services
and vendors; sometimes you send them email or go to their website, sometimes
they send you email. One day
you get an email from a website or vendor you work with regularly saying that
your membership information needs to be updated online,
or perhaps there’s been a billing error and you need to verify your
information. So you
click on the weblink that’s in their email,
and you go to the website of the vendor you’re used to dealing with, Ebay
or Earthlink or Citibank Bank or whomever, and everything looks normal and
official, so you click through the screens verifying your name and password
and credit card information, and it thanks you for updating your information.
You are totally clueless that you have just given your
personal financial information to a hacker who is now going to either go on a
spending spree with your credit card information, or sell your information to
other crooks. In the
shark infested waters of the internet, you have just fallen – hook,
line and sinker - for the most dangerous internet fraud in operation today
– which is known as Phishing (spelled phishing) or spoofing – fraudulent emails that prey
on your honesty and internet surfing habits to get you to give them your
secret financial information. What is Phishing?
I will read the definition from a website named Antiphishing.org
There’s
an American term called “highway hypnosis”, meaning you get so
used to driving on the highway that your senses dull, and sometimes you can
fall asleep and have a serious accident. That’s why there’s
rumble strips on the road, to make noise if you start to veer off and to
awake and warn you. And now
in the world of the internet, I might be coining a new term when I talk about
Information Superhighway Hypnosis – you get so used to being on the internet
that your senses dull, and it’s very easy to fall prey to a fraudulent
email asking you to innocently update your personal financial data. But in
this case there’s no rumble strips that are
going to make noise to warn you ... you have to be aware of these schemes and
protect yourself. And next
week on Raw Bytes I’ll tell you what you must do to protect yourself
from these frauds, and what you can do if you have fallen prey to one. .For Raw Bytes This is Frank Delaney (C) 2004 MTA Micro
Technology Associates http://www.mtamicro.com/kpbx.html (509)624-7230 |
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