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18 Nov 2010
Over the last 18 months, an ominous change has swept across the Internet. The threat landscape once dominated by the worms and viruses unleashed by irresponsible hackers is now ruled by a new breed of cybercriminals. Cybercrime is motivated by fraud, typified by the bogus emails sent by "phishers" that aim to steal personal information. The tools driving their attacks and fueling the blackmarket are crimeware - bots, Trojan horses, and spyware.
18 Nov 2010
The explosive growth of online fraud has made "phishing", and to a lesser extent "pharming" part of nearly every Internet user's vocabulary. Phishing and pharming are two popular forms of fraud that aim to dupe victims into believing they are at a trusted Web site such as their bank, when in fact they have been enticed to a bogus Web site that intends to steal their identity and drain their financial resources.
Article: Tips on Reducing Your Junk Email
from Norton's Cybercrime News
Spammers constantly change tactics, so it’s very difficult to eliminate 100 percent of your junk email, but there are
ways to severely reduce it -- if you follow some of these helpful tips.
- Don’t respond!
No matter how strong the urge, don’t fire off an angry response to the spammers. You’ll only be letting them know that they have a live address, ensuring you’ll receive more spam. Even if spammers can’t con you into giving them money directly, they can still earn some cash by selling lists of live email addresses to others. If your address is on such a list, the amount of spam you receive will snowball. So what can you do? - Report the spam to the authorities.
In the U.S., you can forward spam email to spam@uce.gov. You can also report it to your Internet service provider and the sender’s ISP, if you know it. Next, block the sender’s domain. Blocking individual addresses is often ineffective since spammers only use them once. Hit them where it hurts. - Block images
Even if you don’t click any links, an image opening in your email can alert spammers to a live address too. Oftentimes, this image could be one that’s incredibly tiny, only one pixel wide. Automatically blocking all images in your email application helps reduce spam. You can always choose to view images in individual emails, should you receive one that isn’t spam and you want to see the embedded images. - Safeguard your email address
Commenting on blogs and Twitter can be fun. But be wary of how much personal information you reveal. Nearly everyone knows not to reveal his or her home address (and if not, you’ve just been warned), but listing your email address in a comment isn’t a good idea, either -- nor is it necessary. Many blogs allow other members to send a PM (private message), should you allow this option, by simply clicking on your online handle or avatar. This makes listing your full email address out in the open redundant. And if you absolutely must include it for some reason, write it out creatively (for example, MyEmail “at” email.com). This thwarts spammer software crawling the Web looking for anything with an “@” sign. - Protect yourself with anti-spam software
All of the tips we’ve covered so far may help curb spam, but what can you do if you never give out your address and still receive spam? It happens. Arming yourself with anti-spam software can help -- just make sure it uses the latest information against spam. Otherwise, it won’t be very effective. - Reconsider your email address
Finally, here’s one last tip many don’t consider: Dump your spam-ridden address for a clean start. Despite enacted laws, sending spam is so simple and inexpensive that spammers choose to ignore them and play a “numbers game.” Many have software that can guess your email address and blast out spam your way. Simple email addresses like “JoeS@AOL.com” only makes it easy for them. If you’ve tried everything else, but you’re still being overwhelmed with spam, you may want to consider a new, more complex address. Think of it as changing your phone number. Inform your friends and family and ask them to keep your new address to themselves; no sending animated gift cards and no forwarding chain letters, please. It may be hard to say goodbye to your familiar address, but better that than facing a mountain of junk email every day.