Scams, Scams, Scams

They are everywhere and everyday people are victims and out severaly hundreds of dollars.  The first clue to a scam is someone contacting you requesting money in any form.  They want your banking information or your credit card information. They will threaten you with irs or law enforcement.

They change their tactics and do their homework on you.  Thanks to the internet and social media they can identify who is your family and pretend to be them. They will come up with with some sob story requesting money.

Social Media like Facebook spreads the spam as people like to click click click all those links that are called "click bait" and in turns infects your account to spam it to your friends and so on. What is click bait?  It's that headline that says "You Won't Believe What Her Dad Did to Her" or "I bet you can't watch this video for more than 10 seconds".  When you click those links you open you facebook account to apps and those apps than start posting as if it's you.  All your friends start clicking on it and the mass effect is exponential.

Computers are every where and another way for a scammer is to tell you that you have computer problems and will fix them for money.  Nobody can tell if you are having computer problems.  Your local Internet Service Provider can tell if you have something going on like such as a virus that produces a lot of irregular internet activity, but they will never ask for money to fix it.  They will just disable your account till you get it fixed. Computer repair people will never ever contact you and tell you that you have computer issues.  Never let someone connect to your computer to fix it over the internet.

Next we have the telephone.  No reputable business will ever call you up and ask for credit card, banking information or threaten you with law enforcement.  Money issues are a civil issue and do not involve law enforcement. People you own money to will have to go through a court process to try and collect from you.  A U.S. Marshall will never just show up on your doorstep to collect money.

Just get it into your head that anyone that is contacting you for any personal information is a scam.  Protect yourself and use different passwords for everything.  Get a password manager to manage you passwords like LastPass.  LastPass will create hard to crack password for every site.  LastPass will work across your computer, android and ios.  Use 2FA aka Multi-factor authentication for any and all website you can.  You can use an app like Authy to keep all your authentications together.  2FA will prevent anyone that knows your username and password from access your account.  In the rare side of things, if a true hacker knows what he is doing, it is possible to capture that 2FA, but if they can do that, you are not safe regardless.  You would have to be a high profile target and the weather conditions would have to be just right for this to happen.  Nothing is ever 100% secure, but you can take steps like 2FA to prevent from being hacked.

Use the security questions, but never ever answer them truthfully.  For instance, What is the name of your pet?  How many people on social media and just in general know the name of your pet?  I can gurantee you, it's a lot. So if your question asks you to fillout your pet's name, put something like "Longlivespongebob".  Where were you born, "Ilikepizza".  It will be up to you to remember these answers and never use the same answer on multiple site.  LastPass allows you to keep a text file for stuff like this.  Now you maybe wondering, well what if LastPass gets hacked, nothing is 100% secure, but even tho if LastPass got hacked, you still have the 2FA to proctect you.  I use LastPass as an example, but there is other similar services out there, such as Dashlane or KeePassX.  I've used LastPass for years and never had an issue and no, I don't have any affiliation with them. Try it, as it's Free and I like Free and pay for the premium as it's worth the piece of mind.  Use it to generate your password words and manage your banking/credit card information.

Firewall and Antivirus is another thing you should be running on your PC. A firewall prevents people from the internet to just stroll right into your computer. It closes the computer doors from entry of the internet and out going locally so nothing can reach the internet. Popular programs such Zone Alarm, Bitdefender, Webroot and Commdo offer a firewall programs to try for free.  Antivirus can block bad stuff from the internet and locally from entering your computer.  They can also help with your online banking security. Nod32, Norton, Avira and Kaspersky are examples of antivirus.  Some Antivirus include a firewall such as Nod32,Kaspersky, Norton.

What about DNS(Domain Name System)?  You can use DNS services to protect your computer even more from bad sites. Several sites offer this, such as Comodo and Norton.  They can block bad stuff from reaching you and your family.

Have a backup plan.  Many website offer a backup service so you can easily restore your personal information. Google, Microsoft, DropBox all offer free space to backup your files for free to a certain size.  There is also professional services like backblaze, carbonite that will protect your personal files.  You could also have your own backup system, but never keep your backup on site.  Your backup system needs to be kept some place else.

Sandbox, is the practice of running stuff in a virtual environment that doesn't exist nor touch your pyhisical stuff.  So if you clicked on a virus in a sandbox, it would never get to your real system. Comodo offers you to surf in a sandbox mode so everything you touch on the internet will never be able to touch you.  This is one of the most effect ways to browse the internet to protect yourself.