TEN RULES TO ESCAPE SCAMMERS ON THE INTERNET

Online security is one of the major problems people face in internet business. This is because fraudsters popularly called “Yahoo Boys” have taken advantage of the internet to dupe people.

What are we really protecting online? Is it our content? Money? Software or other kind of intellectual property? No.
Though we are protecting these too, we can do it better if we can protect our username and password (the login credentials).

Having the above in mind, the following rules apply to avoid being scammed on the internet.
1. Transact business with trusted sites only. Sometimes the scammers “spoof” the web address of a website and we access the “spoof” and enter the confidential information which is directed straight towards the scammers. This is otherwise called “Phishing” in its technical terms. To avoid this problem, remember to click the padlock icon at the right bottom corner of the browser and check the certificate that is issued to the website by the Certificate Authority.

2. Ensure that your identity is passed through HTTPS protocol. Data sent through HTTP is easy to access and captured by scammers, but when such data is sent using HTTPS protocol, it will be very difficult for such data to be comprehended as it is encrypted.

3. Avoid using public computers carelessly. Doing important and private jobs in public place like cyber café is very dangerous because they may have some spyware like key logger to record the keystrokes as we type.

4. Use the virtual credit card for your online shopping.

5. Do not respond to mails and attachment received from anonymous addresses. They may contain “Trojans” which will send out confidential information from your computer to the scammers den.

6. Keep changing your password from time to time, and never write your login details anywhere for your reference.

7. Create complex passwords and do not disclose your password to anybody.

8. Always use anti-virus software and regularly update it to fight viruses and worms that want to attack our computers.

9. Keep your browser up to date. As an interface through which scammers easily gain access to our computers, we must update our browsers regularly as at when required to fixing some bugs or install new features.

10. Always log out and close the browser window when you are through with any work. Do not rely on implicit means of logging out of a system for security reasons especially on a public computer. Instead, log out and wait for the confirmation that the request has taken place.

Although the above rules are quite simple, they are very important to be followed. By so doing, you are sure that you cannot be scammed.