“We suspect an unauthorized transaction on your account. To ensure that your account is not compromised, please click the link below and confirm your identity.”

“During our regular verification of accounts, we couldn’t verify your information. Please click here to update and verify your information.”

Have you received email with a similar message? It’s a scam called “phishing” — and it involves Internet fraudsters who send spam or pop-up messages to lure personal information (credit card numbers, bank account information, Social Security number, passwords, or other sensitive information) from unsuspecting victims. According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the nation’s consumer protection agency, phishers send an email or pop-up message that claims to be from a business or organization that you may deal with — for example, an Internet service provider (ISP), bank, online payment service, or even a government agency. The message may ask you to “update,” “validate,” or “confirm” your account information. Some phishing emails threaten a dire consequence if you don’t respond. The messages direct you to a website that looks just like a legitimate organization’s site. But it isn’t. It’s a bogus site whose sole purpose is to trick you into divulging your personal information so the operators can steal your identity and run up bills or commit crimes in your name.

The FTC suggests these tips for the best internet security to help you avoid getting hooked by a phishing scam and protect your identity.

• If you get an email or pop-up message that asks for personal or financial information, do not reply. And don’t click on the link in the message, either. Legitimate companies don’t ask for this information via email. If you are concerned about your account, contact the
organization mentioned in the email using a telephone number you know to be genuine, or open a new Internet browser session and type in the company’s correct Web address yourself. In any case, don’t cut and paste the link from the message into your Internet browser — phishers can make links look like they go to one place, but that actually send you to a different
site.

• Area codes can mislead. Some scammers send an email that appears to be from a legitimate business and ask you to call a phone number to update your account or access a “refund.” Because they use Voice Over Internet Protocol technology, the area code you call does not reflect where the scammers really are. If you need to reach an organization you do business with, call the number on your financial statements or on the back of your credit card. In any
case, delete random emails that ask you to confirm or divulge your financial information.

• Use anti-virus and anti-spyware software, as well as a firewall, and update them all regularly. Some phishing emails contain software that can harm your computer or track your activities on the Internet without your knowledge. Anti-virus software and a firewall can protect you from inadvertently accepting such unwanted files. Anti-virus software scans incoming communications for troublesome files. Look for antivirus software that recognizes current viruses as well as older ones; that can effectively reverse the damage; and that updates automatically. A firewall helps make you invisible on the Internet and blocks all communications from unauthorized sources. It’s especially important to run a firewall if you have a broadband
connection. Operating systems (like Windows or Linux) or browsers (like Internet Explorer or Netscape) also may offer free software “patches” to close holes in the system that hackers or phishers could exploit.

• Don’t email personal or financial information. Email is not a secure method of transmitting personal information. If you initiate a transaction and want to provide your personal or financial information through an organization’s website, look for indicators that the site is
secure, like a lock icon on the browser’s status bar or a URL for a website that begins “https:” (the “s” stands for “secure”). Unfortunately, no indicator is foolproof; some phishers have
forged security icons.

• Review credit card and bank account statements as soon as you receive them to check for unauthorized charges. If your statement is late by more than a couple of days, call your credit card company or bank to confirm your billing address and account balances.

• Be cautious about opening any attachment or downloading any files from emails you receive, regardless of who sent them. These files can contain viruses or other software that can weaken your computer’s security.

• Forward spam that is phishing for information to spam@uce.gov and to the company, bank, or organization impersonated in the phishing email. Most organizations have information on their websites about where to report problems.

• If you believe you’ve been scammed, file your complaint at ftc.gov, and then visit the FTC’s Identity Theft website at www.consumer.gov/idtheft. Victims of phishing can become
victims of identity theft. While you can’t entirely control whether you will become a victim of identity theft, you can take some steps to minimize your risk. If an identity thief is opening credit accounts in your name, these new accounts are likely to show up on your credit report.

* Don’t use an obvious e-mail address, such as JaneDoe@isp.com. Instead use numbers or other digits, such as Jane4oe6@isp.com.

* Use one e-mail address for close friends and family and another for everyone else. Free addresses are available from Yahoo! and Hotmail. You can also get a disposable forwarding address from www.spammotel.com. If an address attracts too much spam, get rid of it and establish a new one.

* Don’t post your e-mail address on a public web page. Spammers use software that harvests text addresses. Substitute “janedoe at isp.com” for “janedoe@isp.com.” Or display your address as a graphic image, not text.

* Don’t enter your address on a website before you check its privacy policy.

* Uncheck any check boxes. These often grant the site or its partners permission to contact you.

* Don’t click on an e-mail’s “unsubscribe” link unless you trust the sender. This action tells the sender you’re there.

* Never forward chain letters, petitions or virus warnings. All could be a spammer’s trick to collect addresses.

* Disable your e-mail “preview pane.” This stops spam from reporting to its sender that you’ve received it.

* Choose an Internet Service Provider (ISP) that filters e-mail. If you get lots of spam, your ISP may not be filtering effectively.

* Use spam-blocking software. Web browser software often includes free filtering options. You can also purchase special software that will accomplish this task.

* Report spam. Alert your ISP that spam is slipping through its filters. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also wants to know about “unsolicited commercial e-mail.” Forward spam to uce@ftc.gov.

Be Suspicious of Mass E-mails

Many mass e-mails contain false alarms, misleading requests for donations or fictitious offers of money and free goods. You can check the validity of almost any mass e-mail at www.Snopes.com. Don’t forward an e-mail unless you’re sure that it contains accurate information. Not only do such e-mails confuse recipients, they are often used to collect e-mail addresses for spammers.

In 2003 President Bush signed the “can Spam” bill and the Senate approved it by a vote of 97-0. The bill prohibits senders of unsolicited commercial e-mail from using false return addresses to disguise their identity (spoofing) and the use of dictionaries to generate such mailers. In addition, it prohibits the use of misleading subject lines and requires that emails include and opt-out mechanism.

This is all well and good, but there are always people who like to “bend” the rules to where no matter what law is in place, you still don’t get any satisfaction. I get so many unsolicited e-mails that are all considered junk that it’s not even funny.

The problem is that these e-mails are now coming from other countries, and they don’t have to follow the laws of the united States. Because the Internet opens borders and thinks globally, these laws are fine and good, but do not stop the problem.
So what can you do to stop this unwanted assault on your inbox? Here are 5 guidelines to follow to help protect from spam

Number 1: Do what you can to avoid having your email address out on the net.
Watch out for spam spiders. spam spiders search the internet for e-mail addresses to e-mail junk to. Check out a web site called WebPoison.org, a site that is an open source project geared to fight the spambots and spam spiders.
There are also other programs that encode your e-mail address, making it harder for the bots and spiders to read your e-mail address.

Number 2: Get spam blocking software.
There are so many programs out there to help you with this issue. Even though some of the software is not foolproof, it does control most of the junk from getting in your inbox.

Number 3: Use the multiple email address approach.
This is something that I do and it’s one of the first things someone should do when starting out on the internet. Yahoo, Gmail and Hotmail are just three of the many free e-mail providers that you can get an e-mail account from. If you’re going to subscribe to a newsletter, use your “backup” e-mail account to avoid having the e-mails showing up in your personal account.

Number 4: Attachments from people you don’t know are BAD, BAD, BAD.
Don’t open an e-mail that has been forwarded from someone you don’t know. Don’t even open any attachments either since they can contain a viruses. Being a company network is one thing since they typically block those e-mails, but your personal e-mail is a whole different story.

Number 5: Email services now have “bulk-mail” baskets.
If the provider you’re using doesn’t support this then you might want to think about moving to someone else. this option allows you to put the e-mails from people you don’t know into a “bulk” pile and then choose to let them into your circle.

I hope these guidelines help you from becoming a victim of spammers and others like them.

In this post I’ll discuss a few different ways that certain software can make you more secure.

There are two programs out there that you can use that are free to use along with source code available. They are not the only ones out there. There are so many more, but because they are free, it’s as good a place as any to start at.

Will encryption stop people from accessing my information?
My father told me once many years ago, “locks only keep honest people out”. with that being said, you should understand that encryption is that there are algorithms that are used to encrypt the information. Depending and the complexity of the coding, will make it harder for hackers to “break” the code. Code have been broken before, but that’s because the person kept working on it until he/she figured it out.

Why bother to encrypt my email?

You should be aware that email is far less secure than paper mail for two very good reasons: first, electronic data can be accessed quite easily over an Internet and secondly, electronic data is simple to copy. There is a very good chance that someone has snooped around in your email despite your best efforts to stop it.

How do I go about encrypting my email?
There are many good programs out there that can help you accomplish this. The one that I’ll mention is PGP (Pretty Good Privacy).

PGP (http://www.pgpi.org/) self-describes itself this way: This “is a program that gives your electronic mail something that it otherwise doesn’t have: Privacy. It does this by encrypting your mail so that nobody but the intended person can read it. When encrypted, the message looks like a meaningless jumble of random characters. PGP has proven itself quite capable of resisting even the most sophisticated forms of analysis aimed at reading the encrypted text.”

Why bother to encrypt my files?
Well that depends on what information you’re keeping on your computer. The more personal the information is, the more you should be encrypting the files.Most corporate Internet security employees will attest to the widespread theft of very valuable information. As long as you are connected to the Internet you are vulnerable.

Unfortunately, there are so many different types of security programs that we can download on to our computers. How do we know which program to use? Each one of them are good in their own way, but to know which one you need is up to you.

One of the oldest security programs that most know about is Norton security program. I’ve used it and I think it works just great. If you’re using this program, you’re pretty much in good hands.
What about McAfee Security Program? Well, I started using this program about two years ago when I bought a laptop and it was installed on it already. I found it to be just as good as Norton in protecting the computer from the outside world. What I found different was the fact that it’s security center was a lot easier to navigate through. Overall the two programs are just as good as the other.

If you want to know which program to use to protect your computer, I would say that any one of the two that I spoke about is good to go with, but there are some others out there that will work just as well. It’s a matter of personal preference in regards of which one will give you the best internet security. The reason I talked about Norton and McAfee is because they are the leaders when it comes to protecting your personal computer or laptop.