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Free Security Software Page 5

Fraud Protection

‘Phishing’ is a fairly recent phenomenon and is the name given to the nefarious practice of luring unwary folks by email (spoof emails) to bogus websites where they divulge personal details such as usernames, passwords and account numbers. Once the scammers have this information the person is usually at risk financially or otherwise – at worst they could become a victim of identity theft.

Obviously this is far from desirable and the bad news is that there is no wonder piece of software, free or otherwise, that will infallibly prevent this from happening.

It’s up to you to remain ever vigilant and always be aware of the danger.

Always follow a few simple rules.

Firstly, never click on a link in an email telling you to click and login to update your details. It doesn’t matter how legit or genuine it looks (these scammers are sometimes quite clever and creative).

If in doubt always check first. Contact the company or institution that supposedly sent the email and check with them (ring them up) or you can go to your browser and type in the url of the institution and log in and see if your account really does need updating. Very few businesses will send you an email and expect you to click a link in the email to give sensitive information.

Before you enter sensitive information into a webpage make sure it is secure. Look for ‘https://’ at the start of the url and the little closed padlock at the bottom corner of the window.

‘Pharming’ is also a relatively new problem. This is where crimeware misdirects users to fraudulent sites or proxy servers, usually through DNS hijacking or poisoning – so you think you’re on a safe site but you’re not.

Having said all that, there is one piece of free software that can help you be more aware of exactly where you are in cyberspace...

SpoofStick is a simple browser extension that helps users figure out if you’re on a spoofed (fake) website. A spoofed website is typically made to look like a well known, branded and trusted site (like ebay.com or citibank.com) but if you look you’ll notice a weird looking URL. Now, lots of legitimate urls, particularly those of companies with large websites, can have long, weird looking urls. Spoofstick makes it easy to determine whose website you are really on by displaying by prominently displaying only the most relevant domain information. For example if you’re really on google then Spoofstick will be saying ‘You’re on www.google.com’ on your toolbar.

Don’t rely solely on Spoofstick, just add it to your protection arsenal and remain alert and aware.

Spoofstick is available for Internet Explorer and Firefox.

Download it from: http://www.corestreet.com/spoofstick/

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