Tuesday 1 March 2011

Security Threats To Your PC - Part 2

Phishing Emails

Pronounced ‘fishing’ they’re named this for good reason.  They pose as legitimate emails from banks or shopping websites.  Their aim is to get you to give up your private usernames, passwords and other valuable information.  They will usually say something like ‘Due to an upgrade we require you to log-in and confirm your security details‘.
A word of warning.  No bank or shopping website will EVER ask you to do this.  If you ever receive any email asking you to do so, from PayPal for instance, then ignore it.  If you think there could be some legitimacy in it, never click on the link in the email.  Instead manually type the website address, ie.www.paypal.com into your browser and log-in that way.

Spam

This is more of an annoyance than a threat these days.  Be aware though that should you ever click on a link in a spam email, there could be a virus or trojan on the website at the other end.

Trojans / Keyloggers

These are malicious programs that can be installed remotely by websites as plug-ins or distributed by email.
They can grant criminals back-door access to your computer or, using a program called a keylogger, record and broadcast everything you type.  This would include all your usernames and passwords.  A trojan could also use your computer to send spam email, using up the available bandwidth your ISP allows you each month, which could result in letters of complaint from your ISP and even, in very extreme cases, disconnection.
I hope this will help you to stay safe online.  

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