Security software and internet fraud
If you aren’t running any security software I highly recommend you read the following. If you are running security software and want to know more about it’s capabilitites and limitations, read on.
Security software is not yet able to assist people in identifying phishing scams and advance fee fraud (Nigerian scams) effectively. For this reason it’s very important for Internet users to be able to identify online fraud without relying on software that doesn’t detect the fraud. Security software is good but you must understand that it will never be perfect.
Security software is generally pretty easy to manage and you don’t need to be a computer geek to manage it. Most security programs provide a dashboard that can provide information about what software programs are running, if updates are set to auto and when the last update actually happened.
Everyone has heard of the Nigerian Internet scam where someone posing as a high member of a foreign government tries to defraud naive people over the e-mail. Few people, however, realize the extent of Internet fraud. It goes far beyond the scam e-mails that you see in your inbox every day, far beyond the Internet viruses that you are warned about in the news. Basically, fraud on the Internet is a multibillion dollar business.
Back in the day, Internet hacking used to be something done by young men as a way to prove their online abilities. They would hack into a system just to show off to their friends. Although sometimes they would crash systems doing this, in general they did very little damage. It was just a game for them, and although it was a game that governments and businesses hated, it didn’t do very much damage to them.
Today, Internet fraud can take many different forms. Nowadays, most people are smart enough not to get scammed over the e-mail, but nonetheless the same people get ripped off over eBay all the time. There are Internet dating scams, online auction scams, spoofing, phishing you name it and someone has probably already ripped someone off with it.
No Comments »
No comments yet.
Leave a comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.
