Say NO to internet scams!

As I notice the increment of scams on the internet, I feel like it is my responsibility to help others to prevent them. Well, that is what this article is for!

Before we can prevent them, we need to recognize them.  So, what can internet scams look like?

Phishing itself can come from a lot of different forms,which can come in these ways:

• Fake links
• “Free iPod!”
• “YOU HAVE WON A PRIZE!”
• “Check out the cool pics from the party!”
• Chain Mails
• and others…

Fake Links

Fake links are one of the common scams on social sites. Your friend might write something on your wall (ie. on Facebook), to tell you to help a friend to get used to Facebook by clicking on a link like this: http://facebook.9fds72.com/newfriend.php?q=3753493…. etc. (Fictional Link) The link most oftenly leads to a login page that prompts for username/password, then redirects you back to the social site homepage again.

You might argue that sometimes these links might be true. That IS possible, so look for these to see if it is a scam:

• Domain name is same as the social website, NOT the subdomain or any others. If you are visiting a Facebook link, it should have “Facebook.com” instead of “Facebook.something.com” in the link. i.e., apps.facebook.com is fine, while facebook.apps.com is not.
• If the site requires you to login when you have already did without a message like “Hello username, we need to confirm your identity again” it is 99.9% a scam. If you are not sure, check back the first rule
• Trust the browser when it warns you that it is a “Phishing Site” (Available on FF2+, IE7+, Safari 3+, Opera 9+)

Sign up to get free iPod!

Okay, sometimes these might be real, but most often it is not. There are, afterall, no free lunch in this world. You might be really able to get a free iPod, but you are giving the site owner much more money than you have earned.

These websites mostly operate in this way:

1. Sign up
2. Refer to people/Click Ads
3. Get gifts according to the amount of referrals/ads clicks

These site owners usually earn in the 2nd step, and at the meantime (sometimes) steal your account info “to help you refer more people and get your iPod sooner”. This is where the annoying IM messages come – these websites steal your IM account info, then spreads the message to all of your friends. We will talk about how these scams spread in a while.

To prevent these…. keep “there is no free lunch” in mind. If the site REALLY looks real to you, then make sure you don’t give out ANY account information to them.

YOU HAVE WON A PRIZE!

Pretty much same as the last one, but this one doesn’t ask you for account information (usually) but real money. Most likely they will say you won a prize, and you need to pay certain amount of money for postage and handling fee. Like the last one, keep in mind that there is no free lunch. This type of scams can come in these forms:

• “You were a winner of a lucky draw from a database of emails”
• “You are the 1millionth visitor”
• “Winner of lottery” (even if it claims to be certified)

If you don’t believe that it is a scam, check associated government website for the license. As far as I know, these lucky draws need to be licensed from the government.

Check out these cool pics!

Can’t be more obvious. I didn’t go to the party yesterday, how can you have some pics of me from the party? Again, if you really did go to a party, make sure you do NOT give out any information

Chain Mails

These are not neccessarily critical in security wise, but very annoying. Believe it or not, even if you forward the mails, you are NOT going to get $250 for every mail you send, NOR your true love is going to stand in front of your door tomorrow at 9:30am. If you keep on doing this, more people is going to trust this, and there will be a reason for having 500 spams in everybody’s inbox every day.

Wat are chain mails? Well, here is a typical chain mail:

Please do not take this for a junk letter. Bill Gates is sharing his fortune. If you ignore this you will repent later. MicrosoftAOL are now the largest Internet companies and in an effort to make sure that Internet Explorer remains the most widely used program, Microsoft and AOL are running an e-mail beta test..

When you forward this e-mail to friends, Microsoft can and will track it (if you are a Microsoft Windows user) for a two week time period.

Let’s spend some time in cracking some of the jokes:

1. Microsoft and AOL are competitors! AOL has AIM and Microsoft has MSN, it is VERY unlikely that they will join together.
2. MicrosoftAOL? Never heard of that company! And AFAIK, Google is the largest.
3. Is Microsoft not aware of the fact that not every single IE user sends email? And there are reports to check Market share!

There are more, so don’t be fooled by these.

Others

Some softwares, including those that claim to check “blocked users”, or even some fake anti-virus, are internet scams as well. No matter how they claim to have “no spyware”, they would contain spyware. Make sure you install software that you trust, and again, do NOT share any account information!

STOP THEM!

It’s very easy to stop these from spreading. These scams usually spread by these ways:

1. Get the users to trust them
2. Get account information (email/IM)
3. Send message to friends through email contants/IM buddies
4. Get more users trapped
5. Back to step 1… and again and again

You can help stop spreading them too! First, don’t get tricked and warn other friends (or yourself) to:

• DO NOT share your account information with ANYBODY that you don’t trust. Don’t let them persuade you!
• Keep in mind that “There is no free lunch”
• Make sure it is safe to open any website

If you have any hesitation toward any websites at all, feel free to ask us by commenting here!