Online fraud happens at a staggering
rate, with most agencies estimating attacks happening every minute. Chances
are, someone has already tried to turn you into a victim too. Have you never
received a message from your email service provider notifying you that an
unknown device attempted to access your account and was blocked, for instance?
Or noted some dubious characters on the history of your social networking
account page?
Most of us tend to think of
sophisticated hacking schemes when we think of online fraud. The truth is that
it can be carried out through methods far simpler than that. Consider the young
hacker who managed to hack into Miley Cyrus’s Facebook account by guessing her
password would involve her pet’s name and birthday, for instance. How many of
us have passwords like that?
Thwarting online fraud need not be
overly complicated either. The first watchword is vigilance. If you just learn
to be a bit warier, a bit more careful about what you click on and whom you
believe on the Web, you are already a step ahead of most people. You can also
follow the tips below.
- Change Your Passwords—Really
The strange thing is that we often
get bombarded with advisories from security experts and various online account
service providers about changing our passwords regularly. Yet how many of us
really do change our passwords after seeing that prompt? We like to put it off.However, online fraudsters will not be so lazy.
As much as possible, change
passwords each month. What is more, keep them different from each other! A lot
of fraud victims sustain such massive damage to their accounts and funds
because they use the same password for more than one account. Make a different
password for each one to be safe.
- Shop Wisely to Avoid Online Fraud
Online shopping fraud is among the
most common types of fraud you will see on the Net—and yet it is fairly easily
avoided if you follow some simple regulations:
1. Check vendors’ reputations. Inspect their ratings and
prior feedback. If the vendor is too new to have such data, avoid him for now.
There are surely others selling something similar and with a more established
track record you can gauge.
2. Pay using only secure methods. PayPal is actually
pretty good at refunds if you are protected during the transaction, for example.
- Distrust the Dream Offer
It has been said time and time
again, and it still holds true: if something seems too good to be true, it
probably is. If an offer seems so low that the vendor must be insane or “a new
friend” online seems to be too perfect to begin with, start asking questions.
Once they begin asking you for your valuables—which can be money or private
information, by the way—it might be wise to stop answering.
- Watch What You Reveal
People live in a hugely revelatory
culture these days. They post private photos and information on social networks
and do not think twice about it. The problem is that all of that data could be
used against you later for identity fraud. As much as possible, keep your
personal information to a minimum in what you post online. Thwarting online
fraud is also partly about making yourself a less conspicuous target.
