A few things about online identity theft

What can we do today to protect ourselves from online identity theft in this modern day and age of online purchasing? There are so many people coming up with new and more believable scams every day. There is always something new in the old inbox, and someone sure help you if you submit a classified ad online to try and sell something. Then your inbox gets loaded up with offers to purchase your product for 5 times what your selling it for, with just a small catch. lol I cant tell you the number of times my computer illiterate mother has called me in a panic over a phishing email regarding her paypal and ebay accounts. Even AFTER I deleted those accounts completely for her and she still received the phishing emails she was still calling me and forwarding them to me in a state of panic. Worried someone might have gotten hold of her important information. Anyone who does any kind of transaction over the internet needs to make doubly sure they protect themselves and their credit and bank numbers. If your unsure, just don’t proceed. See if the company has a customer service number you can call, if not they probably aren’t legitimate and you should take your business elsewhere.

Malware, spyware and the like

What brings someone to create malware, spyware, viruses and worms? Why on earth does everyone want to hurt or harm everyone else these days? What goes through these folks minds when they sit down and create the next big virus threat? I just dont understand the meaning behind it all. I consider it just as bad as terrorism in the world, just without the guns and bombs.

There are two common types of Trojan** horses. One is ordinary software that has been corrupted by a hacker. A hacker inserts malicious code into the program that executes while the program is used or modified. Examples include various implementations of weather alerting programs, computer clock setting software, and peer-to-peer file sharing utilities. The other type of Trojan is a standalone program that masquerades as something else, like a game or image file, in order to trick the user into executing the file or program.

Malware** is software designed to infiltrate or damage a computer system without the owner’s informed consent. It is a portmanteau of the words “malicious” and “software”. The expression is a general term used by computer professionals to mean a variety of forms of hostile, intrusive, or annoying software or program code.

Spyware** is computer software that is installed surreptitiously on a personal computer to intercept or take partial control over the user’s interaction with the computer, without the user’s informed consent.

What can we do to protect ourselves these days? Do we really ever have enough protection against these threats or do we just hope we are covered. I run the McAfee Security Suite and just hope that its enough. Always make sure your antivirus, firewall and spyware detectors are up to date with any available updates.

I will start compiling a list of recommended programs that are free to use and have a good reputation. I will start off with AdAware by Lavasoft. This program is free for the private home user or you may pay a fee to have the Pro version. I use the free home version and it works fine for what I need. You can find it here: AdAware

In the next few days I will add to this as well. Hope your having a great week!

**(definitions taken from wikipedia.org)