Phishing Scams

There used to be a time where businesses would get a letter in the mail from some part of Africa claiming to be a Dignitary or lawyer that needed the firm's help. It would go on to ask permission and for bank account numbers so this person could deposit great sums of money to the firm's account. For their trouble, they would give the firm a commission (a wonderfully high sum too)to keep. Of course it was a way to get access to a bank account and clear it out.

Technology has enabled this same scam and so many more to evolve to greater heights.

Beware of any scams that come under the following type:

Generic greetings - If you get an email from Paypal for instance telling you that your account has been compromised and you should sign in, they will use a greeting like Dear Paypal user, or just Dear user. Companies such as paypal know your first and last name and will always use it. Your bank will never send you emails like this. They will call you.

False sense of urgency - These are the emails that say that your account will be closed or blocked if you don't click on their link right away. Don't be fooled

Fake links - These are the most important. A phishing email will have a link that looks legitimate, but it still may send you to a fraudulent website. If a company or bank that you deal with is the subject of an email, go to the regular website address you normally go to, don't use the link in the email. Often it looks very similar and the web address is similar, but the differences mean that you could be typing your user name and password (which is what they are after) into a site that is collecting them for fraudulent purposes.

If I get an email from Paypal or Ebay about a security problem, I never ever sign into my Paypal account from the link on the email I've received. According to experienced Paypal users, this is how 90% of PayPal accounts are hacked into.

The term https:// should always precede the domain address as well. The "s" stands for secure. If you don't see the https then the site is not secure and you should not enter any information.

If you do receive a phishing email for Paypal, you can forward it to spoof@paypal.com. They are happy to have a list of these scams that hurt their business.

The best rule of thumb has always been the same.

"If it seems too good to be true, it probably is"

And for any unsolicited emails you get in your inbox, be very careful of who you reply to and clicking on any links.

AVG

Just to mention that AVG has released AVG version 9. You can download it here at Downloads.com. That is faster than the numerous windows you have to go through to find the free version at their own site. Just go to that site and another download window should open. Save it to your computer (desktop is best so you can easily find it) and then double click to install. You can install it without un-installing your previous version of AVG, but if you have any other type of virus program installed on your computer, pleased un-install it and restart your computer before you install AVG.

A client gave me her computer to find out why it was running so slowly. She hadn't loaded the most up to date version of AVG, but some viruses are easier to delete if you run your virus program while your computer is in "safe mode". Make sure your virus program has the latest update and then restart your computer. When it is restarting, press the F8 key at one second intervals until a black screen appears. Use your arrow keys to choose "Start in Safe Mode". What this does is only load on the essential files that Windows needs to operate. This is good as a virus will often masquerade itself as a legitimate program while it is running. Or be able to jump elsewhere as the virus program deletes it. In safe mode, the virus program is easier able to delete it as it isn't running.

That solved a major problem as trojans and other viruses generally use your computer in some way when they are active. So they are using it's resources while you are trying to as well! That will definitely slow it down! Another aspect to her slow PC was that a lot of programs that she had installed, were set up to load on start up. This meant that it was taking her PC longer to finish the initial start up as well as using resources on her computer. We went to the options of the various programs and stopped them from loading as soon as she turned on her computer as well as taking many programs off her start up menu.

And if you use Skype (which I do and really like) it is good to know that it takes up quite a bit of bandwidth (on your internet connection) even when you aren't using it. You can always arrange with friends to email you if they want to Skype you and you can turn it on again. I generally keep it on all the time, as I don't notice the difference, but if you are on dial up and have Skype installed, it may be making a slow situation even slower!

I found this website as well called My Slow PC and they have this really handy tool that you can download that analyses your computer and gives a report (within a few minutes) of your operating system, what versions you have of IE, whether you have a firewall working. Then it gives advice on what to do about any areas that need work.

To clean up temporary files on your computer in Windows 98 or higher:

1) Click Start, Programs (or All Programs), Accessories, System Tools, Disk Cleanup
2) Choose the correct drive usually C:\
3) Check the boxes in the list and delete the files

Here's to a cleaner and more efficient computer!