There are ways that you can do to prevent cyber fraud from
ruining your life. Keep in mind that many users, businesses and organizations
around the world have suffered in the hands of scammers and organized crime
syndicates. Victims have been reported to lose a lot of money. For example,
ActionFraud, which is the UK's national online crime reporting center, recently
claimed that business victims of conveyancing scams in the country each lose £101,000
on average.
Also in the UK, ActionFraud claims that many members of the
NHS (National Health Services) each lost an average of £34,000 because of a
recent cyber fraud scheme that involves fake tax rebate services. On the other
hand, Canadians have been reported to have collectively lost $17 million CAD to
online dating scams last year.
However, many victims don't just lose money to cyber fraud.
Some end up with ruined credit scores, damaged reputations, broken
relationships with their loved ones, and even wrongful accusations among other
legal complications. This is why you should do what it takes to eliminate or
even significantly reduce your chances of becoming a victim. To help you out -
Here are standard practices that you should remember during your day-to-day
activities on the Web:
How to Avoid Cyber Fraud This Year
First, make sure that your devices and applications have the
latest updates from its manufacturers, your OS (operating system) developers
and third party software companies. Having outdated firmware components, OS
versions, app editions and the like can make you more susceptible to the newest
malicious technologies that are used by scammers and organized crime syndicates
for carrying out their cyber fraud tactics and schemes.
Second, always ensure that the anti-spam and anti-phishing
features of your apps and device OS, if available, are activated. These include
the Web browsers that you use, along with your chat applications, email client
programs, instant messaging tools, social media apps and the like. You'll be
able to significantly reduce your chances of becoming a cyber fraud victim when
you do this, especially since phishing attacks and spam are some of the most
common schemes that are used by scammers to carry out their illegal activities
on the Internet.
Third, keep in mind that if it sounds too good to be true,
then it most probably is. Remember this mantra during your day-to-day
activities on the Web, especially if you're hanging out in your favorite social
networks, dating sites or apps, and even while browsing through your emails and
chat messages. That's because confidence schemes and fake offers are among the
most prevalent tactics that are used by fraudsters today to lure users into
their cyber fraud traps.
Fourth, don't forget to always confirm the authenticity of
any message that you receive, any link that you would want to click, any
content that you intend to download, or any website that you're currently on.
Rogue sites, tampered apps, content downloads injected with malicious code and
the like are heavily distributed all around the Web. By authenticating the
sources of those messages, content downloads, apps and so on - You'll be able
to defend yourself against the most prevalent cyber fraud schemes at the
moment. It might be in your best interest to use an effective system security
tool with real time scanning and threat blocking functions. Just remember to
get a trusted product from a reputable company since there are a lot of rogue
tools out there.
Fifth, keep yourself updated about the newest cyber fraud
tactics and schemes of crooks and criminal syndicates at the moment. You can do
this by signing up at BigScammers.Com. This is an online community that offers
a user-generated content database, which is always full of postings from other
users who have recently fallen for the most widespread online crimes and Web
scams today. By signing up at this website, you'll receive instant
notifications and real time alerts each time a user posts or updates the
content of this website's community repository.
You can also publish your own Web crime reports and scam
complaints in this website, aside from benefiting from the helpful guides and
useful pieces of advice from industry experts like cyber security specialists
and anti-Web fraud agents of government offices worldwide. By knowing how to defend
yourself against the latest scams and malicious programs at the moment, you'll
be able to quickly recognize and steer clear from cyber fraud this 2017.
