Are You Utilising Your Internet Security Suite To Its Full Potential?

A lot of people have Internet security suites installed on their computers, but many people have no idea how much protection their Internet security suite really can offer. For long it has been the perception that an Internet security suite is basically an anti-virus combined with a spam filter and a firewall. That's true, these are the basic components of an Internet security suite, but as time went by, security software vendors had to develop additional, value added tools, in an attempt to stay ahead of the cyber criminals. Most people only rely on the automatic features that are enabled by default, mostly those running in the background, but some Internet security suites have a wide variety of useful tools, just lying around without ever being used. In this article I will highlight those tools in a couple of popular Internet security suites to make you aware that your Internet security suite can do so much more.

I will start off with my favourite Internet security suite, namely avast! Internet Security.

avast! Internet Security

avast! has a great feature called the Sandbox component. This allows you to run suspicious programs in a virtual environment, sandboxing the program completely and preventing it from making any changes to your computer. This is useful for testing out software from unknown vendors, because a program, that is for instance not digitally signed, is not necessarily a malicious program, but you have the comfort of testing it in a protected environment before allowing it access to your system. The Sandbox component automatically kicks in when avast! identifies a suspicious program, but you can use this feature on any executable file by right-clicking the file and choosing “Run in sandbox” from the context menu.

The SafeZone desktop environment is another underrated feature of avast! Internet Security. It works basically the same as the Sandbox, but in a broader context, it not only protects the browser, but creates a complete virtual desktop environment where you can conduct online transactions safely and privately.

The last feature I would like to mention for avast! Internet Security is the Site Blocking feature. So, what makes this feature worth mentioning? Basically the ability to block sites based on specific keywords. This can be utilised as a small parental control tool, by blocking not only specific inappropriate sites, but sites containing certain keywords in their URL's. This is in no way a replacement for a comprehensive parental control tool, but if you don't have parental control tools on your computer, this tool may come in very handy.

Outpost Security Suite Pro

Outpost Security Suite Pro may not have the virtual environments of avast!, but it has a great tool that protects sensitive information from being transferred from your computer, over an insecure connection. It is called the ID Block feature. This is a handy little tool, but you need to use it very carefully. The idea behind this tool is to remove parts of your sensitive information before transmitting it over an insecure connection. This means the ID Block feature will not interfere when you are entering credit card information on a secure page, that uses SSL encryption to transfer your information over the Web. So how does it actually work? You need to add your sensitive information to the ID Block feature so that it can know what to look for. You will not enter your complete credit card number or social security number for instance, only a significant portion of it, so that the ID Block feature can replace that part with asterisks (*), when the information is transferred over an insecure connection like e-mail, unencrypted web pages or an instant messaging program, that doesn't use SSL to encrypt your information. You can also use the ID Block to protect parts of your passwords, so that you never enter them inadvertently on an unencrypted page.

Outpost Security Suite Pro also has a site blocker called the Site and Ads Blocker. Apart from blocking websites as a whole, you can also block unwanted elements on a web page. The site blocker can also be used as a parental control tool, just like the Site Blocking feature of avast!

Perhaps the most underused tool of Outpost Security Suite Pro is the File & Folder Lock. This tool prevents any other program from modifying, deleting, moving or renaming a specific file or folder, so it basically works like a read-only file or folder, the only difference is you can't remove the lock if you don't know the master password of the security suite. This is a very useful feature for files and folders containing important information that is seldom or never changed. This can also be applied to important program and system files to prevent malware from patching them with malicious code.

Kaspersky Internet Security

It has been a while since I reviewed Kaspersky Internet Security, but the latest version seems to have two new features.

The first one is the Safe Money mode, it works basically like avast!'s SafeZone component, but not as a separate virtual environment but it is a special secure mode inside your browser.

The second new feature is the Secure Keyboard, a virtual keyboard you can use on banking and shopping sites when you have to enter credit card, banking or other sensitive information. This prevents key loggers from stealing important information because they monitor the keys being pressed on your physical keyboard and since you are not using it in these cases, you are no longer exposed the dangers posed by these spyware programs.

Kaspersky Labs was one of the first security software vendors to introduce an integrated parental control tool in their Internet security suite. Although it is not the most comprehensive parental control tool, it has enough features to help the parent perform most parental controlling tasks, like exercising control over applications, games and websites used by your children and blocking, limiting or logging your children’s communications, as well as blocking the transfer of private data, such as phone or credit card numbers.

There are many other good Internet security suites that I did not discuss here, but you should be able to identify a certain pattern here. Most Internet security suites have additional features that include some virtual environment where you can conduct online transactions safely, an identity theft protection feature and some form of web filtering feature. The message I'm trying to get across here is to pay attention to the additional features of your Internet security suite, you paid for this stuff, so why not use it? Don't wait until something bad happens, use all the security tools at your disposal, better be safe than sorry.

If you need any help with the features discussed in this article, feel free to leave a comment on the blog, or e-mail me with your questions.

About the Author
Coenraad is webmaster and founder of Cyber Top Cops, leaders in Internet security, analysers of security software and raising awareness about spam and malicious software.

MailWasher PRO, Spam Filter and Spam Reporting Tool

If you are one of those people who often report spam to anti-spam organisations like SpamCop, KnuJon and Cyber Top Cops, I bet you always wished you had a tool that can combat spam and report it to anti-spam organisations at the same time. Well, you can stop wishing because such a tool has been available for quite some time now and it is called MailWasher PRO. In this article I will give step by step instructions on how to use MailWasher and how to configure it so that you can filter and report spam more efficiently.

MailWasher has quite a unique approach to spam filtering, by getting rid of your spam before you download it with your e-mail client. This saves bandwidth and the time of scanning through the multitude of junk in your inbox to find your good e-mails. Most e-mail clients already have a built-in spam filter (like Mozilla Thunderbird and Microsoft Outlook), but MailWasher does not attempt to replace these built-in spam filters, but rather complement them. You should see MailWasher as your first line of defence against spam and your e-mail client's built-in spam filter as a backup for the spam that got past MailWasher.

Where do I get MailWasher? Visit Firetrust.com and download the 30 day trial version of MailWasher PRO. There is also a free version available, but you can only use it with one e-mail account, you won't have a recycle bin for your deleted e-mails and the preview pane is very limited. If these limitations do not bother you, I recommend you download the free version.

Now how does MailWasher work? It is really simple, you open MailWasher before opening your e-mail client, let MailWasher check your e-mails, tell MailWasher which ones are spam and which ones are good and finally, click on the Wash Mail button and let MailWasher do the rest. After “washing” your e-mails, open your e-mail client and download your e-mails from your spam-free e-mail account.

So how exactly do you tell MailWasher which e-mails are good and which ones are bad? Well, each e-mail has a thumbs-up and a thumbs-down icon next to it. If you click the thumbs-up icon, MailWasher will identify the e-mail as good mail and if you click the thumbs-down icon, MailWasher will identify the e-mail as spam. Over time, MailWasher will get better at classifying your e-mails correctly, so you won't have to train MailWasher all the time. If you are not following what I am saying, watch the 60 second MailWasher PRO, quick start video.

One way of improving MailWasher without doing any manual training, is by setting up custom filters under the Spam Tool Settings. To do this follow these steps:

1. Click on Settings.
2. Click on Spam Tools.
3. Click on Filters.
4. Click on Add Filter.
5. Give your filter a name, for example avast! Spam Filter, you may leave the Description field empty.
6. Make sure Filter Type, is set to Spam and that the sentence under Rules reads: Apply filter to e-mails that match Any of the following rules.
7. Click on Add Rule.
8. Change Entire message to 'Subject'.
9. Enter the text *** SPAM *** in the text input box.
10. Click on the Save button at the bottom of the window.

This filter will work great with the anti-spam component of avast! Internet Security. avast! also uses the tag *** PHISHING *** for phishing e-mails, so you can add a second rule by repeating steps 7 – 9 above, and adding the text *** PHISHING *** instead of *** SPAM ***. This should work with any spam filter that modifies the Subject of identified spam e-mails, you just need to change the text, specified in step 8, to the appropriate tag added by your spam filter. For example Kaspersky Internet Security adds the text [!!Spam] to the subject line when it identifies an e-mail as spam, so if you are using Kaspersky Internet Security, replace *** SPAM *** in step 9, with [!!Spam].

This does not necessarily have to correspond to a specific spam tag added by a spam filter, you can also add filters for words found in the subject line, commonly associated with spam, for example: Enlargement, Supplement, Pharmacy, Congratulations, etc. You can even add a couple of other words, that's not appropriate for me to mention in this article, but I think you know what I mean. This will keep vulgar and inappropriate e-mails out of your mailbox and MailWasher will mark them as spam automatically. The possibilities with these custom filters are endless.

The other great thing about MailWasher is its Spam Reporting Tool. That's right you can report spam to SpamCop, KnuJon and Cyber Top Cops all at once. To set up a spam reporting service, follow these steps:

1. Click on Settings.
2. Click on Spam Tools.
3. Click on Spam Reporting.
4. The SpamCop service will already be created, so double-click it to open its settings.
5. Replace the text in the Email to field with your own SpamCop reporting e-mail address. It should be in the format submit.SPAMCOPID@spam.spamcop.net. Replace SPAMCOPID with your unique SpamCop ID.
6. Choose the e-mail account through which MailWasher must send the report.
7. Choose the colour of the report service. This is the colour of the icon that will appear next to the e-mail under the Reporting column.
8. Choose a letter of the alphabet to identify the spam reporting service easily. The letter 's' will already be assigned to the SpamCop Service.
9. Click on the Save button at the bottom of the window.
10. Click on Add Service.
11. Type Cyber Top Cops next to Service name.
12. Type spam@cybertopcops.com next to the Email to field.
13. Leave Email content blank.
14. Repeat steps 6 – 9. Choose the letter 'c' in step 8.
15. Repeat step 10 – 14. Choose the letter 'k' in step 8. Instead of Cyber Top Cops in step 11, type KnuJon and instead of spam@cybertopcops.com in step 12, type KNUJON@COLDRAIN.NET or your unique KnuJon reporting e-mail address.

Now you are properly equipped for the battle against spam, without breaking a sweat. All you need to do now is to mark the appropriate spam reporting services before clicking on Wash Mail. To do this go back to your Inbox in MailWasher, right-click on the column bar with the different headings and select Reporting from the list. When you mark an e-mail as spam, also click on the reporting service icons under the Reporting column. If you followed my instructions correctly you will have 3 icons next to each spam e-mail, where each icon correspond to the colour and letter your chose in steps 7 and 8 above.

About the Author
Coenraad is webmaster and founder of Cyber Top Cops, leaders in Internet security, analysers of security software and raising awareness about spam and malicious software.

Should I Use Parental Control and Monitoring Software?

A while ago I wrote an article about Reconciling Parental Control Software with Internet Security Principles. My view on parental control and monitoring software hasn't change much since then and I still feel that monitoring software can pose a huge security risk if not used correctly. However it seems like more and more anti-virus vendors are integrating parental control tools into their Internet security suites and one tend to wonder why.
 

I was viewing a couple of questions on Yahoo! Answers and WikiAnswers the other day and I noticed quite a lot of teenagers asking the question on how to bypass blocking software in order to view porn. I even saw a question from a grandfather for advice on how change his password to prevent his grandson from using his computer for porn, while he is asleep at night. I will agree that this is no new trend, but porn usage among teenagers are an ever increasing problem and the only way to battle it, is to control the way your children and grandchildren are using your computer, their own computer or even the family computer.

Now before I discuss this topic any further, I would like to make it very clear that I'm not trying to tell parents how to raise their children, but I'm merely focussing on the role that computers are playing in our lives and the threats they pose to our children and how we should manage it as part of your parental duties. Parental control and monitoring software are useful tools to control and understand your child's online activities, but it is in no way a substitute for your responsibility as a parent to protect your children from being exposed to inappropriate content. Sure, we cannot lock our children up and never allow them to play outside, so they are going to be exposed to things we don't like, but we need know about those exposures and react to them as quickly as possible. Parental monitoring software is just one of those things that can make it easier for us to with these threats.

For starters I am not a big fan of installing parental monitoring software on a computer that's used to conduct online transactions. The monitoring software could record your credit card number for instance and should someone break into your computer and gain access to the recorded logs, then you will have a lot of trouble. The same principle applies to bank account information, passwords and pins. So if you have to use parental monitoring software, always use it on your child's own computer or on a family computer that's never used to conduct online transactions.

Another thing that's important is to tell your children that everything they do on the computer, is monitored. This creates an open relationship and if they have nothing to hide, then they should not have a problem being monitored. Any family computer should be in a room where there is a lot of traffic, yes sometimes you need your privacy on a computer when you send an e-mail or chat with someone in confidentiality, but as a parent you need to know who your teenager is chatting to, to whom are they sending e-mails and what kind of e-mails are they reading. Online predators often introduce themselves as teenagers and a parental monitoring tool can be the difference between your child meeting an online predator in real life or you putting an end to a relationship that could possibly harm your child. However there should be a good balance between allowing your child to socialize with known friends and family online and denying your child certain activities online when you are not around. Some parents could end up being totally paranoid and deny their children all forms of socialising on the web. But in the end, you remain responsible for who your child socialise with and you need to exercise the necessary control until your child is at an age where you can trust their judgement.

I'd like to get back to the point that you need to be open about the fact that you are monitoring your children's online behaviour. It is not a matter of distrust, but you would want to know when your child has been exposed to inappropriate content. Not every child will necessarily have the confidence to speak to you about something that they saw online, especially not when they think it is their fault and that they will be punished for accidentally stumbling across inappropriate content. But this can also be a sign of a larger underlying problem between a parent and a child, because your child should always feel free to talk to you when he/she is uncertain about something. But you may ask the question, can a child really stumble across inappropriate content by accident? Well there is no rule of thumb here, but the general perception would be that you can't stumble across porn if you weren't looking for it. This is not always true though and there are many exceptions to this perception.

Last month I investigated a spam e-mail that places the recipient under the impression that he/she can get free $100 meal coupon at McDonalds. The link in the e-mail has nothing to do with McDonalds, that's only to get your attention and to make you click on the link, but the actual link takes you to a random porn site. What child will pass on the chance of getting a $100 free meal coupon at McDonalds? Most children will click on the link, some out of curiosity and other out of gullibility. Do you really want your children to be exposed to the filth on the Internet without knowing about it? Wouldn't you prefer to speak to your child about what they saw and that the images they saw are wrong? Wouldn't you prefer to be the one to confront your teenage son with the information recorded by the parental monitoring software, instead of his friends telling him that browsing porn sites is acceptable? And this is where the openness comes into play. If your child did not know he/she was being monitored and you confront them with the data from the parental monitoring logs, you will most likely break their trust and end up alienating them rather than teaching them what is right and what is wrong.

I bet the following question comes to mind. If I tell my children that they are being monitored, won't they find another way to view porn, like at a friend's house, a cellphone or at the Internet café? First of all, you should be involved in the choice of your children's friends. Secondly, your child should not visit a friends house where there is no trustworthy adult supervision. Thirdly, a child's phone should only have voice services and no data services (yes I know a lot of people will disagree, but you will have absolutely no control over their online activities if they can browse whatever they want on their phone) and finally, an Internet café is not the place for a child to be on its own. People tend to view the Internet as some virtual world, totally separate from our everyday life. But it is as integrated into our lives as choosing the right food for your child to eat. If you exercise control over the physical things that could hurt your child, why not exercise control over the psychological things that can scar your child for life?

I realise a lot of people have their own opinions on parental control and monitoring software and how to raise a child, but porn is a great danger to our youth these days and it is not just the psychological damages that you should be concerned about, your should also worry about the financial dangers of browsing porn sites. What if your teenager manages to get a hold of your credit card and purchase a subscription to a porn site. You may argue you should not let your credit card lie around for anyone to use. True, but wouldn't you prefer to know when your child is sharing personal information like telephone numbers or your physical address with total strangers? What if your teenage boy uses the family computer to browse hardcore porn sites and infect it with some nasty adware. You don't want your eight year old daughter to be exposed to flashing ads of naked people caused by the junk your teenage son installed on your family computer, now would you? You may argue, I trust my children and they would never do stuff like that. You know your children the best and parental monitoring software is not going to raise your child or make the porn sites go away, but it can be helpful to address an ever increasing problem among our youth before it is too late.

Finally you may ask, what's the use of only monitoring my children's online activities, I also would like to control their access to inappropriate sites. For that you need parental control software. Some programs claim they can monitor and control, but they often tend to do the one better than the other. Certain parental monitoring programs have some form of control over the websites your child can visit, but it is often limited to general blocking features like limiting Internet access during specific times of day. Parental control software, on the other hand, may be good at blocking all kinds of porn sites, but they often suck at monitoring online activities. You, as a parent, need to decide what is the most important to you, simply monitoring your child or exercising control over the sites they visit and when they can use the Internet or specific programs installed on the computer. It all depends on your own unique situation. If you only want to know what your children is doing online, then a monitoring program is best suited for you. If you have a troublesome teenager who can't stay away from porn sites, then you may want to use a more aggressive approach and block access to these sites, by using a parental control program. Personally, I prefer a monitoring program over a control program, mainly because it is harder to bypass a monitoring program, without the parent's knowledge, than a control program. I accept the fact that both can be circumvented by a clever kid, but a monitoring program normally gives the parent a thorough audit trail of the child's online activities and it is easier to spot gaps in the logs of a monitoring program than it is to spot incidents where the control program did not do it's job. Another huge advantage of a monitoring program is that it is easier to tell if your children is responsible when they are online, but with a control program you never really know if your children will stay away from inappropriate sites when you remove the restrictions imposed by the parental control software.

In the end, the big question should not be whether we should use parental control and monitoring software, but ask yourself this question: Do you know what your child is doing online? Remember as a parent you need to be part of every aspect of your child's life and if you don't know what they are doing online, then it is about time that you started taking interest into their online activities.

About the Author
Coenraad is webmaster and founder of Cyber Top Cops, leaders in Internet security, analysers of security software and raising awareness about spam and malicious software. 

The Best Internet Security

What is the best Internet security suite in the world? I've reviewed quite a number of Internet security suites and all of them have pros and cons, but what if we were able to take all the good features of each Internet security suite and build the perfect Internet security suite of all time? It is not completely impossible, because most Internet security suites have stand alone versions of their anti-malware and firewall components and some even have a stand alone version of their spam filter. Right, so what do you really need for an Internet security suite?

First of all you need a malware scanner and a resident anti-malware shield to protect your computer from malware attacks. Secondly you need a good firewall to control inbound and outbound traffic over the networks you connect to. Finally you need a good spam filter to protect you from e-mail fraud and other types of unsolicited bulk e-mails. I believe these are the most important components of a good Internet security suite. These days Internet security suites contain all kinds of extra features like parental control tools, anti-phishing tools, identity theft protection, special protection for browsers, sandboxing tools to isolate suspicious applications, ad blockers and more.

I have discovered a combination of 3 specific security applications that will protect you against malware, hackers and spammers. I chose these applications because they provide the highest level of protection without affecting the performance of your computer too much.

avast! Pro Antivirus

I will start with malware protection. avast! has the best malware detection rate of all the malware scanners I've reviewed so far. Apart from its good detection rate, it also has an impressive resident shield (or rather several resident shields). You get the File System Shield, Mail Shield (scans your e-mails for malware), Web Shield (protects you against online threats while browsing the Internet), P2P Shield (protection against treats on P2P networks), IM (Instant Messenger) Shield, Network Shield (not a firewall, but adds an additional layer of protection over your network traffic), Script Shield and the Behaviour Shield (heuristic scanner). Apart from these shields, it also provides additional protection through its Auto Sandbox (allows you to run suspicious programs without harming your system), SafeZone (a special secure desktop environment to conduct online transactions safely), Browser Protection (a special web reputation plugin and the ability to run your browser sandboxed), Remote Assistance (enables you to receive technical assistance from other avast! users, remotely) and Site Blocking features.

I guess it is clear from all the shields it has to offer, avast! Pro Antivirus can protect your computer against most threats on its own, but no security suite is complete without a good spam filter and firewall.

SPAMfighter PRO

Some people feel that a spam filter is unnecessary, but I believe a spam filter just adds another useful level of protection to your computer security. You need a spam filter to cut out all those unsolicited scam, malware, porn and enhancement product e-mails, just to name a few. Why waste your time filtering through hundreds of useless e-mails and walk the risk of being scammed or infected by malware? You might argue that the malware scanner should protect you against malware, but if the malware can't even reach your computer, there is even less risk of being infected.

Another big problem these days, is porn and indecent content being distributed and actually forced down the throats of spam victims. You don't want your children to be exposed to these e-mails and a spam filter will not necessarily eliminate the risk of exposure completely, but it will certainly lower it to an acceptable level.

SPAMfighter PRO is a unique community-based spam filter. When I say community-based, I mean that the strength of SPAMfighter lies in the amount of spam reported by SPAMfighter users worldwide. One may argue that a system like this can easily be abused. Yes, maybe, but it has been fighting the spam battle for quite some time now and is very good at identifying spam and leaving your good mail alone. When I reviewed SPAMfighter it did not flag a single good mail as spam and only a handful of junk e-mails were not identified as spam.

One of the main reasons why I like SPAMfighter so much is it compatibility with most popular e-mail clients. Many spam filters tend to work with Microsoft Outlook only, so if they are not compatible with your non-Microsoft e-mail client, they can't do the job at all, no matter how good they are at filtering spam.

Outpost Firewall Pro

These days you can't use the Internet without a proper firewall, providing adequate two-way protection for your computer. Most people think a firewall only needs to protect you from hackers trying to break into your computer, but you walk a greater risk of having sensitive information leaked from your computer to a remote location, than someone trying to gain access to it from a remote location. So you also need something to monitor your outbound traffic as well.

There is not a single personal firewall solution that can beat the level of network security and effectiveness provided by Agnitum's Outpost Firewall Pro. You know a firewall is good when companies like AVG Technologies, Lavasoft and Sophos use Agnitum's firewall technology in their own products. This is not your standard firewall, Outpost Firewall Pro comes with several additional features like Anti-Leak, System Guard, Application Guard, File & Folder Lock, Anti-Spyware scanner, Ads and Sites Blocker and ID Block. You can read more about these features in our latest review of Outpost Firewall Pro. Performance is a big issue to me, because I believe your security software should never handicap your productivity on your computer. The latest version of this firewall (version 7.5.3, also known as the Performance Edition), has been enhanced quite a lot in terms of performance.

Firewalls tend to annoy users with endless prompts and warnings, but Outpost Firewall Pro works in special Auto-Learn mode for a while. During this learning period it suppresses all those annoying prompts while learning more about the programs you often use and the network connections you normally make from your computer. It is not completely prompt-less during this period and you will still be warned about serious attacks and unauthorised connections being made to and from your computer.

What I really like about Outpost Firewall Pro is that it is much more “intelligent” than most firewalls and only bothers the user when there are some serious decisions to be made, decisions that a firewall should not be allowed to make on its own.

The only drawback about this firewall is that it may be a bit too advanced for novice users, but only when it comes to customizing the firewall to suit your needs. Because of its “intelligence” it will make the right choices during the setup process and most of the settings should work out of the box, so novice users won't have to worry about changing any settings to make the firewall work. If you are a novice user, I suggest you install avast! Pro Antivirus and SPAMfighter PRO before installing Outpost Firewall Pro, just to make your life a little bit easier.

Conclusion

avast! Pro Antivirus, SPAMfighter PRO and Outpost Firewall Pro are exceptional security programs, each in their own right. Running them side by side, gives you an edge over malware, spam and hackers.

There are basically only two disadvantages of this setup. Firstly, you can't manage these applications from a centralised location, like with an integrated Internet security suite, so you have to manage and configure them individually. One may argue that the Windows 7 security centre gives you a birds eye view over the status of all your security applications and all three applications have an auto update feature, so is it really such a big deal if you have to manage each one separately, because how much management and configuration do you have to do by hand anyway? It is probably not such a big deal, but I know some people will still prefer to have all these components bundled into one integrated security suite.

The second disadvantage of this setup is cost. It the time of writing this article, avast! Pro Antivirus will cost you $39.99, SPAMfighter PRO will cost you $19.97 and Outpost Firewall Pro will cost you $29. That is a total of $88.96. If you compare this price to that of an integrated Internet security suite, you will find that the latter is much more cheaper. avast! Internet Security will cost you $49.99, Outpost Security Suite Pro will cost you $24.97 and Kaspersky Internet Security will cost you $59.99. These suites may have a couple of extra features and they may be much cheaper, but the level of protection provided by this setup surpasses that of any integrated Internet security suite.

avast! Pro Antivirus, SPAMfigther PRO and Outpost Firewall Pro each has a free version as well, making them a great choice for a free Internet security setup you don't have $88.96 to spend on computer security software.

 About the Author
Coenraad is webmaster and founder of Cyber Top Cops, leaders in Internet security, analysers of security software and raising awareness about internet fraud and malicious software

Have We Lost The Ability To Think For Ourselves?

What do scammers always use to their advantage? What enables con-artists to swindle their victims? What is the most important thing scammers always rely on? Only one thing, the victim's inability to think for himself/herself.

The other day I saw an add for an e-book about some magical way to cancel traffic fines or to get them refunded (I'm not going to mention the name of the book, because it is a load of hogwash and I'm not going to give it any form of exposure except for illustrating my point). For starters, some lines on the website were poorly formatted with some strange HTML coding. Certain pieces of the text were aligned to print over other pieces of text, making some parts of the page totally illegible. This was caused by some funny div-statements used by the web designer. (This guy obviously did not know what he was doing). But it is not important to know what the web designer did wrong, it is more important to note that the seller of this e-book could not be trusted. Why? Because if he can't even format his website properly (or at least get someone to do it for him), how can you be certain that the owner won't steal you money and sell you a piece of junk looking like his website? But lets forget about the poorly designed website for a moment and focus on the product he was trying to sell.

This book, will presumably help you to get your traffic fines cancelled or even refunded by exploiting flaws on parking and speeding tickets. The book is therefore aimed at traffic fines in general and not UNFAIR or INVALID traffic fines (as a matter of fact, the author makes no mention of the words UNFAIR or INVALID on his website). The site does not even contain a single encouragement to motorists to keep within the speeding limit, to put money in the parking meter or to drive safely within the bounds of the laws of the road. No, the sole purpose of this book is to get traffic fines cancelled or refunded, whether you committed an actual offence or not. Now think about this for a moment, why should you buy a book to exploit the loopholes of the law in order to save money in traffic fines, if you can save money by just sticking to the law? In other words you don't need to spend a single penny to save money, you just need to use your damn brain. This book is actually encouraging reckless driving and should be banned. If you really exceeded the speed limit for instance, why should you be able to get the traffic fine cancelled. You contravened a law and you should pay the fine (and don't give me that bull that loopholes in the law is there to be exploited). It is a whole different scenario if you were wrongfully accused of a traffic offence, but this is not what the book is about (or at least that is not the impression the site gave me). But the most disturbing fact is that there are people who will actually buy this book. Really, you got to be brain-dead to buy a piece of junk like this! And this is why I ask the humble question, have we lost the ability to think for ourselves?

Have you ever wondered why people accept so many things and question so very little? I believe this is often the result of a fast paced lifestyle, where there is no time to think about something, you need to make a decision immediately without contemplating. But can we blame our bad decisions on the pressures of modern day life? Any normal person possesses the ability to reason, but it seems as if more and more people are losing this ability by the day. Are we really losing the ability to think for ourselves, or are we deliberately suppressing our ability to reason? I always ask myself these questions when I analyse scam e-mails and fraudulent websites and most of the times I simply cannot understand how it is possible for a healthy mind to be swindled by obvious scams like these. And by obvious, I mean scams containing obvious and common signs of fraud and deceit.

I have to admit, not all scams are that obvious and it has to be mentioned that some of them are quite cleverly designed to look like the real thing. But the majority of scams contain telltale signs of deceit (whether it is a scam e-mail, a fraudulent website, an obscure add in a magazine, a call from an unknown individual or a dishonest salesman). The main problem is, many people only accept the solution or promise presented by the scammer and never pay attention to the means by which the scammer attempts to solve the problem or deliver the promise. The driving force behind the success of almost any scam is money and greed. You need a combination of both to make a scam successful and a greedy victim walks a greater risk of stepping into the trap set by the scammer, without realising it. But greed is not the only factor, ignorance is another weakness exploited by scammers, to improve their chances of successfully swindling their victims.

How long will we be able to use ignorance as an excuse? There are so much information about the latest scams, freely available on the web. Financial institutions post warning messages and examples of scam e-mails on their websites and some companies even communicate directly with their clients about the latest tricks and gimmicks used by scammers. With all this information at our doorsteps and sometimes even in our laps, how can we use the lame excuse of "I didn't know"? Computer illiteracy is also a stumbling block for many people, but computers have become part of our everyday lives and fewer people are computer illiterate these days. But there will always be a technological gap among computer users, because not everyone eat, sleep and drink computers. There will always be advanced and novice computer users and the latter are often at risk of falling for scams, where they don't comprehend the mechanics exploited by the scammer. But this can easily be remedied through a little bit of education. Most online banks and shopping sites have detailed guides and tutorials on the risks and signs of phishing, identity theft and other forms of fraud. These guides are often very detailed, but quite simple and easy to understand, with graphical illustrations and examples, specifically targeted at novice users. But advanced computer users should read these guides as well, because the fact that you know everything about computers does not make you immune to all forms of online fraud.

With all this information at our disposal, how is it still possible for some scammers to swindle their victims? I believe people are not taking the time to familiarise themselves with the risks of online fraud. If you don't know how to use the address bar of your browser, or why the address bar turns green on certain sites or how use your status bar to preview the address of a link, you are like a suicide bomber. It is like driving a car without the proper training, you are a danger to yourself and everyone around you. Like I mentioned earlier, the information published by banks and online shops, regarding the methods used by scammers to swindle their victims, are not that hard to understand (and for goodness sake if you don't understand these guides ask someone you trust to explain them to you). So if we have all the information about the techniques used by scammers and if they are easy to comprehend, why on earth do people still fall victim to these obvious scams? Simply because they don't read the information available to them. If your bank account was emptied by a bunch of crooks, because you clicked on a link in some e-mail about updating your personal details or something like that, then you are either living on a different planet or you haven't been paying attention to the warnings communicated by your bank. Where have you been in the last decade or so? These scams have been an active threat to the online community for several years now, so how is it possible that you haven't heard of these scams before? Honestly, people need to wake up and smell the coffee! Open your eyelids and pay attention to your surroundings! Start to THINK for yourself and stop depending on other people to do it for you!

Unethical marketers are able to convince some people to buy stuff they don't need, simply because some people are like zombies, allowing outside influences to manipulate their thoughts. Scammers follow the same tactics, they force the victim into believing everything they say in their scam e-mails or on their scam websites. The promise of millions of dollars, a valuable object or the threat of suspension of your bank account, is often so sudden (or promising), that people forget to think about the source of the e-mail or the means by which the scammer are communicating with them. The initial contact made by a scammer is a crucial point in the development of a scam. If you can't identify the scam early on, chances are that you won't realise you are being conned, until the damage is already done. The only way to identify these scams is to use common sense and a bit of scepticism. I'm not saying you need to be over-suspicious towards every e-mail and phone call you receive, but you need to look very critical at every form of communication, where you don't know the person on the other side. In other words, ask yourself the following common sense questions (where the answer to each question is obviously NO): Will the bank ask for my credit card number over the telephone? Will my bank send me an e-mail request to update my personal e-mails? Will an official from another country contact a total stranger, in connection with a multi-million dollar transaction? Will the Executive Director of the FBI use a free e-mail service to contact me about some scammers who MAY have contacted me in the past? Will a company like PayPal or Amazon make spelling and grammatical errors in their e-mails? If this is such a great business opportunity or such a revolutionary product, why haven't I heard about it before? Is it possible to make loads of money by simply distributing a chain letter received through the post? The list goes on and on...

You see, by asking a couple of critical questions you will soon be able to identify whether an e-mail, phone call or a letter in the post is a scam or not. It just needs a little bit of reasoning and common sense, there is no rocket science to it. But if you are too lazy to think for yourself, deliberately ignoring the warning signs of common fraud, then you deserve to be scammed!

About the Author
Coenraad is webmaster and founder of Cyber Top Cops, leaders in Internet security, analysers of security software and raising awareness about internet fraud and malicious software