Image Source: prawfsblawg.blogs.com

Nigerian scams have proliferated over the internet through emails. Their modus operandi are predictable. But recently, it was discovered that Nigerian scammers are operating on Facebook already. This was eventually revealed when a Google employee was almost duped by the said scammers. She was contacted through Facebook. In the popular social networking community, you are only to receive emails from your friends inside your particular network. No one else. It is believed that one of the employee’s friends’ account has been hacked by the scammers. And was therefore compromised. In this light, security authorities are predicting that these type of fraud will step one level further and will continue to fool many others of their money and bank accounts.

Image Source: hoax-slayer.com

The Phishers’ goal is to get your personal information. They hope to get this when you take the bait that they sent through your email. It does not it mean, it just needs your name or your address. What these fraudsters want are your personal bank details, credit card numbers, passwords, account details of your Paypal and Ebay accounts. and when they do get these information, you can say bye bye to your money and credit. They will login to your account and literally suck the life out of your money’s life. Funds can be stolen in a matter of minutes if not seconds. Bank account details or your credit cards can be used to purchase online or transfer funds to other bank accounts in another part of the globe.

The internet has become more and more popular over the years and privacy has always been the issue of endless debates and has become a major dilemma.
Who would want to feel being spied on?

Spywares are programs that are picked up just by simply surfing a website or downloading a file. Spywares can pickup information of your credit cards which are then sold.
Many developers have continually created software that will counter the Spyware and rid of it, but just as smart these people are, so are the hackers.

Cookies may sound like yummy, but online, cookies can be the nemesis. Cookies are initially created as tools to allow websites to recognize you when you view their pages again.
But unscrupulous webmasters collect data from you and sell them to interested parties. Cookies can steal your identity. How yummy? It is important to protect yourself online.

A few things to note:

Get a decent Anti-Spyware software available online.
Keep your Anti-Spyware and Anti-Virus software up to date.
Regularly run your Anti-Spyware and Anti-virus programs to track down spywares lurking behind your machine.

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Are you sure that every time you surf the world wide web that your file or computer is safe?
Every time you surf the net your exposing your ID address and it can be the chance cracker are
looking for to access your file. You have to make your file more secure like using a firewall
which make some cracker hard to access your computer files.

Is cookies a risk?
Although some anti-virus consider it as a warning but cookies are only file created by the
web server sent to the web browser for the purpose of sending it again by the web browser to
the web server to identify the previous session that the web browser done. It like a log file that send information about your previous activity.

“Hackers have succeeded in breaking into the computer systems of two of the U.S.’ most important science labs, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Tennessee and Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.

In what a spokesperson for the Oak Ridge facility described as a “sophisticated cyber attack,” it appears that intruders accessed a database of visitors to the Tennessee lab between 1990 and 2004, which included their social security numbers and dates of birth. Three thousand researchers reportedly visit the lab each year, a who’s who of the science establishment in the U.S.

The attack was described as being conducted through several waves of phishing emails with malicious attachments, starting on Oct. 29. Although not stated, these would presumably have launched Trojans if opened, designed to bypass security systems from within, which raises the likelihood that the attacks were targeted specifically at the lab.”

Article Link: http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,140390-c,hackers/article.html

Source: cgisecurity.com

If you encounter an unsolicited e-mail that asks you, either directly, or through a web site, for personal financial or identity information, such as Social Security number, passwords, or other identifiers, exercise extreme caution.

If you need to update your information online, use the normal process you’ve used before, or open a new browser window and type in the website address of the legitimate company’s account maintenance page.

If a website address is unfamiliar, it’s probably not real. Only use the address that you have used before, or start at your normal homepage.

More…Always report fraudulent or suspicious e-mail to your ISP.

Most companies require you to log in to a secure site. Look for the lock at the bottom of your browser and “https” in front of the website address.

Take note of the header address on the web site. Most legitimate sites will have a relatively short internet address that usually depicts the business name followed by “.com,” or possibly “.org.” Spoof sites are more likely to have an excessively long strong of characters in the header, with the legitimate business name somewhere in the string, or possibly not at all.

If you have any doubts about an e-mail or website, contact the legitimate company directly. Make a copy of the questionable web site’s URL address, send it to the legitimate business and ask if the request is legitimate.

If you’ve been victimized, you should contact your local police or sheriff’s department, and file a complaint with the FBI’s Internet Fraud Complaint Center at http://www.IFCCFBI.gov.

Source: usgovinfo.about.com

FTP Trojans

FTP Trojans opens up an FTP server on your PC and may be used to store and serve illegal programs/ softwares or sensitive data. They may also let attackers connect to your machine by FTP (File Transfer Protocol).

Security software disablers

Security Software Disabler Trojans, are notorious in disabling your computer’s defense mechanisms such as anti-virus, firewall, some components and even prohibit the installations of other programs. Once your defenses are down, you will be more vulnerable to virus attacks.
This type of Trojan usually targets specific end-user software such as personal firewalls and some anti-virus. This is often used in mischievous net activities such as hacking.

Proxy trojans

Proxy Trojans transforms your computer into a proxy server wherein it can be made available for the whole world or just the attacker to browse. This kind of Trojan is commonly used in anonymous Telnet, ICQ, IRC, etc., to make transactions for other a number of illegal activities.

The attacker will remain anonymous and will posses to do everything (transactions) from YOUR own computer. These activities also include launching of attacks from your network to other prospect victims.

The worst part is if the attacker’s activities are discovered, (since he is using your network) it would appear that you are the culprit as the trail will lead to you.

To be continued…

Destructive trojans

This is one of the most irritating Trojans as it is designed to destroy and delete files stored in your pc. Some can automatically delete system files, gradually slowing down the system and corrupting it as an end result. The attacker can either activate the Trojan manually or program it to function in a specific time and date.
Destructive Trojans works similarly like a virus, but the difference is that it is created to attack your system (virus causes damage as a “side effect” of infecting files) and is least likely to be detected by your anti-virus software.

To be continued…

Trojan Horses appear to be a bigger trouble than other type of Malware such as Viruses because they are designed to be destroy or disrupt your system or to get information from you.

Different types of trojans

Remote access trojans
This Trojan grants the attacker with absolute access and control of your machine. This may be the most publicized Trojan and the most preferred by hackers.

Data-sending trojans
These Trojans are installed into your system to send the hacker private information such as passwords and personal conversations as it has the ability to record keystrokes you punched in the keyboard.

To be continued…