How to avoid becoming a victim of online scams?
With the advent of the Global Network in our lives, many attackers moved from the city streets to the Internet. On the World Wide Web, the easiest way to maintain your anonymity, but investigating the facts of network fraud is much more difficult. So how not to become a victim of computer crime?
Steps. 1. Phishers are cybercriminals who create clone sites of popular social networks and various Internet resources to obtain the user account of those sites that have been exactly copied. For example, the user has a page in one of the social networks. When accessing the attacker’s website, he will see an authorization form that exactly repeats the login form to his community. However, do not rush to enter your username and password. First, in the address bar of your Internet browser you should check the URL of this Internet resource, and if its address is at least one letter different from the original site, then you must leave this resource. As a rule, phishers create not only exact copies of popular web pages, but also select the most similar names with cloned resources. Therefore, you need to be especially careful when clicking on various links.
2. Also, a network user may receive a letter to his e-mail, as if on behalf of the resource where he was registered, with a request to click on the link. The need to verify the URL transition in some of these cases may not help. It’s all about the HTML language. Thanks to him, a fake link can easily be disguised as a real link. As a result of this, you can see the correct address in the message body, however, clicking on it can lead the user to the attacker’s site. After checking the link URL in the text of the email, no one will surely check the address of the site to which he clicked on the link. Attackers are counting on this. Therefore, when clicking on a link from an email, you should check the address of the resource to which this transition occurred.
3. When you visit some sites in the corner or in the middle of the screen, an antivirus window may pop up, which notifies that the user’s computer has picked up a dangerous virus. But do not rush to click on such an alert. You should open your antivirus and see if there is a real threat to the computer. Some unscrupulous owners of Internet resources host banners that copy the manner of alerts and sounds of various antivirus programs. After clicking on such a banner, the user will be asked to cure his computer of a dangerous epidemic by sending SMS to a short paid number.
4. If the user nevertheless became a victim of fraudsters, suffered any material damage or his personal data was affected, it is necessary to contact the police department “K”. This agency investigates crimes committed in the computer field and fights against Internet criminals. In general, it is recommended to be vigilant and try not to fall into the tricks of such scammers.