Common Misconceptions When It Comes To PC Security- Some Do’s And Don’ts
It seems that we have put too much pressure on the consumer in terms of security and how much we have made them responsible for knowing when it comes to their computers. We’ve put more and more responsibility on the consumer’s shoulders and perhaps are not doing our part to protect them. It may be in our best interest to understand why many fail to see the danger in e-mails and other forms of malicious communication the way that we do. What may appear obviously dangerous to us, may not appear so to common consumers.
Just last week a family member of mine fell victim to a group of fake emails from Amazon regarding cancellations. These emails appeared to be completely legitimate, and since he had just placed a few orders recently, was convinced that they were legitimate.
Hackers have the ability to send out emails using our friends email addresses, which is no secret to us, but may not be so apparent to those less experienced with these matters. It may be a little more obvious to them because they know you probably wouldn‘t send them an email about elicit matters, but in the case of an Amazon cancellation notice, it may not be so crystal clear.
Facebook posts and Twitter links may not be as safe as you think as hackers have grown an interest in these types of social networking facilities. Hackers have the ability to post fake messages that appear to be coming from friends of yours, and there are many know strategies today that we have seen being used by hackers in order to do so.
Many consumers think that if they simply read the email message and don’t open any attachments, then they’re OK. But the truth is there are ways that a virus can be passed from within the email itself, and can be just as if not more dangerous than opening an attachment. Another misconception that consumers have is that if they visit a website and don’t navigate the website, then they’re safe, which also may not necessarily be the case.
The majority of infectious virus cases and malicious software issues that we see today resulted from actions taken by users that appeared to be completely justified because of the nature of the content, and it’s up to us to a make sure that we are properly educating consumers and making them aware of the constant dangers that they face.
Many of us are using torrents and P2P clients like LimeWire to illegally download songs, movies and/or install full-price software for free. I will Not stop you from doing this but let me tell you one thing. All you have to do is : look at the file’s size before you download it! Adobe Photoshop CS4 can’t be squashed into a meager 437KB file, can it? Nor can a Kings of Leon song be packed into 17.1KBs! These are actual viruses! Virus-creator-people just change the name of the file to make it look like a full file. Another thing you can do is that : Install an updated Browser on your computer for meeting all your Internet needs. Updated browser can keep you away from many Malwares etc.
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