Avoid Online Fraud And Phishing

One of the fastest growing crimes in America is Identity Theft or Credit Card Fraud. A person can assume your identity over the Internet and wreak havoc on your savings and checking accounts and ruin your credit. Without some form of legal protection it will take years to clear your good name, if you can clear it at all.

This is one of the primary reasons why Legal Protection has become just as important as Health Insurance. The two are actually intertwined because if anyone has to deal with the judicial system, banks, and credit card companies in an attempt to prove your innocence regarding credit card fraud, this can have an adverse effect on your health in ways one cannot imagine.

There’s a new aphorism born of Identity Theft and it states, “It’s a lot easier to protect yourself from Identity Theft than to recover from it.” Let’s take it a step further; it’s a lot easier and much less expensive.

Because of the fact that America has become a “lawsuit happy society,” legal protection has become vital in the 21st century. Anyone can be sued at the drop of a hat as hundreds of frivolous lawsuits are filed in court, across America, on any given day. You can easily become a victim to one of the many absurd lawsuits especially if you don’t have legal protection. People are actually less apt to file a lawsuit against you if they know that you have access to an attorney.

Five Ways of Avoiding Online Fraud

#1 Monetary Prize

Disregard and delete any emails you receive that says, “you’re a winner” or you’ve won any contest that you didn’t sign up for. That includes “winning a lottery,” or an “inheritance” or any type of foreign money transfer from Nigeria or any other country.

#2 Spelling Grammar Typos

Pay close attention to misspelled words, typos, and poor grammar. Mistakes of this sort do not appear on legitimate online financial institutions or businesses that conduct transactions over the Internet.

#3 Functioning Links

All links on authentic websites will work. If you click on a link and it takes you to a non-existent site, check the URL once more, if it still does not work you should be leery of the website.

#4 Virus Protection

Many of the hackers and those who participate in fraudulent activity over the web prey on unprotected computers. Therefore it is crucial that you keep your virus protection up to date, and run all necessary scans, especially when prompted from your Virus Protection software.

#5 Fraudulent Emails

Turn your spam filter on in your email program. This filter will eliminate a good percentage of fraudulent emails but it won’t stop all of them. It is critical that you do not click or open emails that you do not recognize. If you don’t know who the sender is, a good rule of thumb is to avoid the email altogether.

Avoid being Scammed on the Internet

More and more people are working virtual office these days and there are myriad others who are looking for the opportunity. There are myriad, legitimate ways to generate income from home but you need to be careful of the wolves, aka, those individuals masquerading as authentic companies but are only out to take your cash. Take heed to these top five ways to avoid being scammed and you won’t lose one dime of your hard earned money.

Too Good to be True

If it sounds too good to be true 99% of the time it’s not true. Those advertisements about making $5k in one day are totally bogus and you’ll lose your investment as sure as your name is what it is. Go with your first mind, which is your intuition, and walk away from anything that sounds to good to be true.

MLM – Multi-Level Marketing

Wikipedia’s definition of MLM is “a marketing strategy in which the sales force is compensated not only for sales they personally generate, but also for the sales of others they recruit, creating a downline of distributors and a hierarchy of multiple levels of compensation.” That sounds all well and good but most MLM companies are structured so that only those few at the top actually make any worthwhile money. Why? Because the product they typically sell is not worth the price therefore the only way you can make money is off the top, by getting others to “buy” into a flimsy, fledgling company, or in many cases, the ideas of a couple of people, which is very difficult to do. Even when the MLM does come up with a usable product, it can usually be purchased elsewhere for half the price.

Never pay to work from home. Treat a virtual office job as you would treat a traditional, brick and mortar job. You never paid to apply for a job in the past, don’t pay to apply or work on the Internet. Any company that ask for one dime to work for them, online, is more than likely a scam.

Do Your Research

There are a couple of websites, “Alexa” and “Compete,” that allows you to find out who owns a website, how long it’s been in business, the address, and the person or persons behind the website. You can also obtain free traffic metrics, and search analytics about a particular website (see links to these sites below)..

If the site or company you are looking to do business with is not listed on either of the aforementioned sites it’s best you move on and do not invest any time and certainly don’t invest any money.

Be Consistent With Your Work

Success from home and earning a living off the Internet is not an easy task. You can have monumental success on the Internet but to do so you have to be passionate about what you’re doing. You have to learn all you can about Information Technology and the Internet. You must be a student of the World Wide Web. If you are passionate about the Information Technological Age that is upon us your learning, research, and work won’t feel like work. That’s when you know you are passionate about it and that is when you will find success.

Establish a Will

Everyone needs a Will, especially if you have a spouse and children. Regardless of what you think you have or don’t have; your net worth goes beyond the amount of money you have in the bank.

Your accomplishments in life can be passed on to your immediate relatives but this can only be done if you have a will. Otherwise, if you meet your demise and are not protected, any and everything you have worked for can and will be awarded to the state or other agency.

With the growing popularity of Internet transactions, many people now have various financial online accounts including services like PayPal. Residual and passive income continues to grow after one’s demise. If you have not stipulated who that money goes to, it will continue to grow and over the course of time and inactivity, PayPal or whatever financial institution you were associated with, will be the recipient of your funds. In the past 10 years this new financial phenomenon has occurred thousands of times and it happens daily. The owner of a residual account perishes and there is no benefactor.

Miscellaneous Benefits

There are myriad other benefits of signing up with a Legal Plan, such as:

  • Auto Repair Disagreements
  • Traffic Citations
  • Home Buying
  • Home Foreclosures
  • Defective Products
  • Reimbursement of Security Deposit
  • Contract Negotiations

There is much more to offer and for the monthly or annual fee that you pay you are certainly getting your money’s worth. Not to mention the confidence boost you get when you have an association with a good legal plan. We’ve all seen or heard of legal proceedings where the defendant seems to be in a world of trouble. However, if the defendant has adequate legal representation; most negotiations take place behind the scenes. Much sooner than later, he’s no longer a defendant, his life is back on track, and it’s back to business as usual.

2017-2018 Computer Viruses

A computer Worm, unlike a virus, which requires human interaction to spread, can copy itself automatically.

A Trojan lurks inside an innocent looking piece of downloaded software or email attachment. You can also acquire a Trojan from visiting a web page. The Trojan is the most common type of virus infection in the United States.

Spyware is installed without your permission and used to track your web movements and intercept your keystrokes to capture passwords and personal information.

Trojan horses disguise themselves as valuable and useful software available for download on the internet. Most people are fooled by this ploy and end up downloading the virus disguised as some other application.

Win32.Worm.Stuxnet.A

The primary result of the Win32.Worm.Stuxnet.A virus is a slow Internet connection. This occurs because of massive network propagation. It is a new breed of e-threats that emerged around July of 2010.

The virus creates a backdoor, as well as the installation of two rootkits that will conceal both the .lnk files and the accompanying .tmp files.

Use anti-malware software to remove the Win32.Worm.Stuxnet.A virus.

Win32.Worm.Prolaco.S

The Win32.Worm.Prolaco.S virus spreads in two ways:

  1. Via e-mail, disguised as a greeting card. The e-mail contains a zip attachment that includes an executable file impersonating a .doc, .chm, .pdf, .jpg, or .htm extension.
  2. Via USB or removable drives.

The worm creates a hidden copy of itself in the system folder. Possible names for this copy:

[system folder]wmimngr.exe;
[system folder]jusched.exe;
[system folder]wfmngr.exe.

Use anti-malware software to remove the Win32.Worm.Prolaco.S virus.

Worm.P2P.Palevo.FP

Unsolicited messages in Instant Messaging applications which have the following form:

foto [smiley face] http://ow.ly/28pw7?=http://www.facebook.com/photo.php

The Trojan spreads by spamming Instant messages to your contacts. The malicious application copies itself in the operating system’s folder with the name “jusched.exe”, which is similar to a known programming language file.

Remove with Anti-Malware software.

Remote Access Trojans

Remote Access Trojans are the most frequently available Trojans. These give an attacker absolute control over the infected computer.

The attacker can go through the files and access any personal information about the user that may be stored in the files, such as credit card numbers, passwords, and vital financial documents.

Keep your anti-virus software up to date and consistently run an anti-malware program.

Denial of Service (Dos) Attack Trojans

The intention behind Denial of Service (DoS) Attack Trojan is to produce a lot of internet traffic on the computer or server, to the point that the Internet connection becomes too congested to let anyone visit a website or download something.