Good Security Habits.

How can you minimize the access other people have to your information?

You may be able to easily identify people who could, legitimately or not, gain physical access to your computer—family members, roommates, co-workers, members of a cleaning crew, and maybe others. Identifying the people who could gain remote access to your computer becomes much more difficult. As long as you have a computer and connect it to a network, you are vulnerable to someone or something else accessing or corrupting your information; however, you can develop habits that make it more difficult.

• Lock your computer when you are away from it. Even if you only step away from your computer for a few minutes, it's enough time for someone else to destroy or corrupt your information. Locking your computer prevents another person from being able to simply sit down at your computer and access all of your information.
  
  
  
• Disconnect your computer from the Internet when you aren't using it. The development of technologies such as DSL and cable modems have made it possible for users to be online all the time, but this convenience comes with risks. The likelihood that attackers or viruses scanning the network for available computers will target your computer becomes much higher if your computer is always connected. Depending on what method you use to connect to the Internet, disconnecting may mean ending a dial-up connection, turning off your computer or modem, or disconnecting cables.
  
  
  
• Evaluate your security settings. Most software, including browsers and email programs, offers a variety of features that you can tailor to meet your needs and requirements. Enabling certain features to increase convenience or functionality may leave you more vulnerable to being attacked. It is important to examine the settings, particularly the security settings, and select options that meet your needs without putting you at increased risk. If you install a patch or a new version of the software, or if you hear of something that might affect your settings, reevaluate your settings to make sure they are still appropriate (see Understanding Patches, Safeguarding Your Data, and Evaluating Your Web Browser's Security Settings for more information).

What other steps can you take?

Sometimes the threats to your information aren't from other people but from natural or technological causes. Although there is no way to control or prevent these problems, you can prepare for them and try to minimize the damage.

• Protect your computer against power surges. Aside from providing outlets to plug in your computer and all of its peripherals, some power strips protect your computer against power surges. Many power strips now advertise compensation if they do not effectively protect your computer. During a lightning storm or construction work that increases the odds of power surges, consider shutting your computer down and unplugging it from all power sources. Power strips alone will not protect you from power outages, but there are products that do offer an uninterruptible power supply when there are power surges or outages.
  
  
  
• Back up all of your data. Whether or not you take steps to protect yourself, there will always be a possibility that something will happen to destroy your data. You have probably already experienced this at least once— losing one or more files due to an accident, a virus or worm, a natural event, or a problem with your equipment. Regularly backing up your data on a CD or network reduces the stress and other negative consequences that result from losing important information (see Real-World Warnings Keep You Safe Online for more information). Determining how often to back up your data is a personal decision. If you are constantly adding or changing data, you may find weekly backups to be the best alternative; if your content rarely changes, you may decide that your backups do not need to be as frequent. You don't need to back up software that you own on CD-ROM or DVD-ROM—you can reinstall the software from the original media if necessary.

Authors: Mindi McDowell, Allen Householder

Lottery Scam, What It is and how to Avoid It?

Internet scams and frauds are on the rise! The quantity of scam emails with various fraud schemes any email account receives today is simply overwhelming! There is this infamous Nigerian 419 scam, which is by far the most widely circulated one. I wrote about it in one of our ezine articles not long ago. You can read about it here! And there are many other scams like Lottery, Letter of Credit, money transfer, black money conversion, real estate, fraudulent order and the list goes on and on.

Looking at my daily doze of scam letters, looks like, the lottery scam seams to be gaining popularity among the con artists. This scam is similar to other forward fee schemes, where the goal of the con artist is to persuade an unsuspected victim to send an advance payment for some dubious offers that the swindlers never plan to fulfill.

Email Lottery Scam

The subject of the emails from an unknown source to you will, probably show, something similar to, "Congratulation! You have own a lottery". With minor variations the text in most of these letters is virtually identical.

The letter, usually, claims to be issued by a Lottery Company based in some countries like The Netherlands, Switzerland, England, Canada or the USA.

And then it says that you are one of many people randomly chosen from all over the world to participate in a lottery of a very large sum. You along with some others have won this lottery. You will be asked to contact them immediately to claim your prize money. Most certainly, the letter will also warn you to keep this as a secret and will specify that the offer has a time limit.

If you contact them after receiving this letter; there are number of variation how the thugs will try to swindle you. They are quite imaginative and sometimes very innovative in their endeavors.

In general the idea is - you have to pay a fee before the lottery company can release the amount to you. The pretexts are, usually, an investigation company has to make sure that you are the right person who won the lottery, as a foreigner you have to pay a tax before you can get your prize and there is a processing and handling fee that has to be paid before hand, etc.

Don't think that these dubious offers are only sent by emails. People received them by regular mails, by direct phone calls and even by SMS.

Phone Call Lottery Scam

One fine morning you may receive a call from a person, claiming to be a lawyer from a prestigious law farm, and will tell you that you have won a foreign lottery; that a processing fee is due before the prize money can be released to you. The seniors are most likely to be the victims of these telemarketers. If you are located in the USA, most likely, the person will introduce himself as a Canadian lawyer and will inform you as if you have won a Canadian Provincial Lottery.

Lottery Scam by SMS

You may even receive a SMS message advising that you have won a foreign lottery. You will be instructed to log onto a website and enter a login and password, which would be provided to you in the message. The site will have the same look and feel of a legitimate lottery site, but in fact, it is a copy site created by the scammers. The URL address will have a very minor, virtually, unnoticeable difference. Once you log in and see for yourself that you have really own the lottery, you will be asked to forward a gaming tax of US $100 to US $500 before you claim your prize.

How to identify these scams and avoid being conned?

The number one motto that you should follow is - if it is too good to be true, then probably, it is indeed too good to be true! There is no way you can win a lottery, in what you have never participated!

The followings are the signs of probable scam offers, you will be better off if you avoid them scrupulously:

Any offer, where you have to send cash upfront to redeem you prize.

Any offer of a substantial percentage of a large sum of money to be transferred into your account, in return for your "discretion" or "confidentiality";

Requests for signed and stamped, blank letterhead or invoices, or for bank account information;

Requests for payment in advance of transfer taxes or other fees; Statements that your name was provided to the soliciting party either by someone you do not know or by "a very reliable contact;"

Unsolicited calls asking if you would like to be in a "Lottery pool";

Mail notifying you that you have already won a substantial sum of money.

Nowshade Kabir is the founder, primary developer and present CEO of Rusbiz.com - a Global B2B Exchange with solutions to create e-catalog, Web store, business process management and other features to run a business online. You can read various articles written by Nowshade Kabir at http://ezine.rusbiz.com.

A High Tech Identity Theft With A Low Tech Solution.

Have you ever got an email asking you to confirm your account information from a bank or a company that you have never done business with? The email looks official and it even has a link that appears to take you to the company's website. The email you have received is actually from an identity thief. These crooks are hoping people that have an account with the business will click on the link and submit their account information for verification purposes. These thieves are phishing for account information. Phishing is a sophisticated way to lure you to phony websites where you voluntarily surrender your passwords and account information to identity thieves without realizing it.

These types of emails often threaten you. You must take action within a limited time or the consequences will be dire. Some AOL customers received a phishing email stating if they did not verify their account information within 24 hours, their service would be terminated. Other phishing emails will state your account has been flagged or has a problem and the account information needs to be verified. We received an email for Pay Pal that stated our account had been flagged and we needed to verify our account information. The identity thieve was lucky. We do have an account with Pay Pal. We open the email and it appeared to be an email from Pay Pal. We click on the link and it took us to https://www.paypal.ae.com. The site looked Pay Pal's website. The web page was asking for our account information for verification purposes. We knew right away it was a phony because our Pay Pal account was opened with another email address. This particular site has been shut down, but doesn't mean the identity thieve was caught. You could receive a phishing email from the same thieve tomorrow. What can you do to avoid such a trap?

First, realize reputable companies will never send you an email asking you to confirm your account information. The email will look authentic and this may cause you some concern. If this is the case, you can always call the company and ask about your account. An alternative to calling is checking your account online. Do not click on the link in the email. Log completely out of your email and open another window and type in the company's web address to verify your account.

You're probably thinking why would you want go to the trouble to close your email and open another browser window. The link in the email is a cloaked redirection link that will take you to another website that is not associated with the company. A cloak link will show you the correct web address when you move your mouse over it. If you do click on that link, the web address, or URL, will be similar to the company's address, but it will not match exactly. The website will look just like just like you expect it too look. The web page will ask for your account information. You're just one click away from submitting your account information to the identity thieve. We went to the actual Pay Pal website and, sure enough, our account was ok.

Identity thieve have been known to attach a file to a phishing email. The attachment contain a program to transmit your personal information on your hard drive to the identity thieve. You will never know the program has been installed on your computer. Never open an email attachment unless you specifically requested it and are expecting an email with an attachment. The phishing email may be from someone you know. His or her computer could be infected with a virus that sends email to everyone in his or her address book. Delete the emails with attachments without opening the email.

Finally, if you get an email that is phishing for your information, forward it to spam@uce.gov. If you know how open the email headers, cut and past that information into the email to help the FCC track down these identity thieves.

George Burks of http://www.mybiweeklymortgagepayment.com has offered a biweekly mortgage payment plan with no enrollment fees since 1999. His interest in financial topics is varied and includes identity protection. Please visit our financial library.