Phishing, Scammers, and Trojan Keyloggers,- attacks are rising in frequency this Holiday season.
Network Advisor Q wants to remind everyone during this holiday season of shopping online and looking for gifts to be careful, cautious and alert. Phishing emails to try to have you relinquish your password to email and other sites are becoming more and more frequent, fake alerts that your infected and need to call to get your computer fixed pop up from unprotected compromised sites and redirected fake sites are showing up more and more.
Network Advisor Q wants you to be safe this holiday shopping season. There are enough complications in everyone’s life that we don’t need to add being hacked or identity theft to the pile. Here are some steps to protect yourself.
Make sure your antivirus and firewall features are updated and running.
Make sure windows or your OS are fully updated and patched with the latest security updates and downloads.
Go to places you trust on the web, and if a email comes to you to verify some password or login, don’t use the embedded link in the email- open your browser and log directly into the site to see if its real.
Most web sites also have contact info for consumers, if you receive a suspicious email from a site call and confirm, a 30-minute phone call can save you hours, days, or years trying to get your identity back.
Take your time reading the email or pop up– check for grammar and spelling mistakes to the most common English words and sentence structure. Check the senders address Outlook@jjjhk.au for example this did not come from Microsoft because the domain doesn’t even reference a Microsoft owned domain name (red lettering).
When in doubt call a professional, or more knowledgeable friend. Most companies such as mine will freely give you advice for a one- or two-minute conversation. Network Advisor Q encourages calling or emailing us if you are questioning a suspicious email or site.
After a pop-up or site that looks fake is opened, do a quick scan for malware or viruses, close the current browser, even restart your pc and open a new browser window to
see if it has affected the settings. Example.. changing the default search engine from google to (webhelper) or it changed your home page to a different site. If any of the above -call your professional to help revert and clean the infection of spyware or virus.
If it sounds to good to be true, it’s probably fake– We all get them, emails and sites that promise free items or amazon gift cards. DON’T, the more lists and sites you register to, increases the ability for a phishing scam to infiltrate your pc and increases the amount of junk mail you receive.
Change up and regularly change your passwords to financial institutions and email sites. As much it is a pain to do these items, it does secure your privacy better, just because they know one password doesn’t mean they can get all passwords.
Finally, when available and if it doesn’t mess with functionality of any programs- enable 2 step authentications. This will prevent unauthorized access to your accounts, it will also notify and record logs of when the account was accessed and even from what ip address. It will prevent and help in fighting the never-ending battle against people who want to do you harm.
Network Advisor Q want you and your family to have a safe and Happy Holiday this year. Remember to be safe and vigilant on the web, rely on your professionals, and remember to try to Shop Local. We have included some phishing emails and pop up images throughout the article for reference. We are here for you if you may have any questions.