The Internet's most successful scams
Thread poster: Aguas de Mar (X)
Aguas de Mar (X)
Aguas de Mar (X)
Mar 26, 2010

While drinking my morning coffee, I came across this article, which I found most interesting, and want to share it because I, like probably a lot other colleagues in these forums, am the type to believe that I will never fall for a scam. However, a couple of things mentioned in the article are downright scary, and always good to know. Below are some excerpts, and the full article can be accessed a... See more
While drinking my morning coffee, I came across this article, which I found most interesting, and want to share it because I, like probably a lot other colleagues in these forums, am the type to believe that I will never fall for a scam. However, a couple of things mentioned in the article are downright scary, and always good to know. Below are some excerpts, and the full article can be accessed at: http://redtape.msnbc.com/

“1.) Online dating
Anyone out there never done anything dumb for love? If you are raising your hand, congratulations. You may now relinquish your credentials as a human being. The rest of you should read on.
Love-based cons are the easiest to perpetrate. Why? Because love always involves a leap of faith -- trusting something you can't see or touch. Just like Internet scams. For years, criminals have made haunts out of dating services and lonely-hearts chat rooms. Broken-hearted folks are rarely in their right minds, so they make easy targets.

2.) Fake anti-virus software
We've all seen the pop-ups: "Your computer is infected! Get help now!"
At first, the ads were clunky and the threats idle. But now, many pop-ups are perfect replicas of windows you would see from Windows or an antivirus product. Some sites actually employ so-called ransomware, which disables your PC until you pay up or disinfect it with a strong antivirus product.

3.) Facebook impersonation
But the crime you should most worry about is Facebook impersonation. A criminal who hacks into your Facebook account can learn a staggering amount of information about you. Worse yet, he or she can gain trusted access to friends and family.
For this reason, it's time to upgrade your Facebook password. Treat it like an online banking site, because it's not a stretch to say that a criminal who hacks your Facebook account is only one small step away from stealing your money (“Hello, First National Bank, I've lost my password. But my high school mascot is the Owl and my mother's maiden name is Smith. Oh, and my first girlfriend's name was Mary. Can you reset the password now?”)

4.) Becoming a bot
You may not know it, but your computer might be a criminal. Botnets -- armies of hijacked home computers that send out spam or commit other crimes -- remain the biggest headache for security professionals. No one thinks it's their PC, of course, but look at the odds. If one estimate claiming 100 million infections is accurate, then about one out of every 20 computers in the world is infected.
How can this be? Victims typically don’t notice the criminal activity. Cyberthieves can easily use your machine without leaving a trace or slowing down your PC performance. Instead of sending 1 million e-mails from your machine, they send one e-mail every hour from 1 million infected machines.

5) The fakosphere
The Web is now littered with fake blogs, fake ads, fake acai berry products, fake work-at-home jobs and fake Web sites saying how great all these things are. You'll even see ads for such products on all major media Web sites, as they've become the Web's answer to late-night infomercials. Never purchase a product without searching Google using this search term: "(Product name) scam" and "(Product Name) complaint."

The piece also includes a few other sites with information on web scams that are worth checking.
Happy reading!
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Lincoln Hui
Lincoln Hui  Identity Verified
Hong Kong
Local time: 18:19
Member
Chinese to English
+ ...
Bots Feb 1, 2021

Bots are a security risk, but they are not scams.

 
Paweł Hamerski
Paweł Hamerski
Poland
Local time: 11:19
English to Polish
+ ...
I see nothing interesting for me - everyday danger and Feb 1, 2021

caution help since a long time

 


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The Internet's most successful scams







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