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This post is contributed by Ashish Mohta from Technospot.net where he explain “what is technology in really simple words”.
According to data collected over years, around 10 million Americans are affected by identity threat every year. Identity frauds via internet are increasing on alarmed rate. The main sources are Phishing, email scams and others.
What is Identity fraud ?
Identity Fraud is to fake other user by stealing his detail, ids, password or even sometimes duplicating a site to misguide visitors.
How to avoid it ?
Your computer can be a gold mine for a computer thief.Here are some tips which can be followed to avoid identity fraud.
- Watch out for phishing scams: These are fraud emails and websites which impersonate trusted website to get your email password or even home address. One way to check is to check if it has “https” when you go for any secure transaction like paying money and login.
- Be careful of unknown emails: You might get lot of emails which will say “Yahoo” on the subject and they will say you have won prizes.They will ask you for full details and address to send it. Be careful, coz when you check the email “@xyz.com” It will never be from yahoo.
- Don’t Use the link on email: Never use the link on the email to visit the site unless you trust or know the sender. They might be faked url. If you wish visit the website directly by typing yourself and find out the information about it.
- Be careful about spellings of websites: Next time you type a website url, make sure you know the right spelling. There are lot of sites which take advantage of it. For example paypal.com can be miss spelled as paypol.com.
- Install anti-spywere and security updates Some emails might contain programs which can run on background of your computer and extract information from your browsers like saved password and emails.
- Keep your primary email safe: If you like to subscribe into different forums and others, avoid submitting your primary email id. Use your primary email id at places where you trust and at official places.
So next time you start using the computer, be careful what you are doing and where your information is going. Keep the tips in mind. If you want to keep yourself updated about new scams refer the site of FBI Escam Updates
If you have more tips and experience that can you can share with readers, please do so in comments. Ask anything or any doubts you have. Feel Free!
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wrote, on April 6th, 2007
sign your emails with GPG or open PGP it’s free and effective. I sign all my outgoing mails now
wrote, on April 6th, 2007
These Tips are very useful. Thanks
wrote, on April 6th, 2007
I have seen many softwares installed which record key presses. This might be used to steal passwords in cyber cafes. So the best way is to confuse the key logger by typing arbitrary letters in the middle (at some place other than the password box..obviously
).
wrote, on April 7th, 2007
While you are posting your mail ID on web post like this
name[at]gmail[dot]com
spam bots can’t sniff those type od IDs
wrote, on April 7th, 2007
I think my previous comment here was marked spam
Anyway I mentioned about the key logger software installed in many cyber cafes. They can steal your password so the best way is to confuse the logger with arbitrary keys pressed while typing the password. And changing the password as soon as one uses it from home.
wrote, on April 7th, 2007
Thanks for the tips, I never knew the thing about https! So you might have just saved my identity.
I’ve never experienced Identity fraud, maybe my identity is too boring to be stolen…how depressing…
wrote, on April 8th, 2007
[...] How To Avoid Identity Fraud by TechBuzz [...]
wrote, on April 8th, 2007
[...] which is used by the cyber criminals to get hold of your data. In my last post I discussed about “How to avoid identity fraud ?” , Now let’s discuss about phishing and spy phishing which is one of the major technique [...]