Are You Secured on the Net?

Are You Secured on the Net?

We all are living 2 lives these days one is the real life and the other one is the virtual life- the life on the internet. We have net friends, social networks, dating, scrapping, and personal information on the internet. The average time spend by an individual on the internet is also increasing. The question that comes to our mind is that are we secured in the virtual world. You would have seen the movie matrix where every human being had 2 lives – Real and Virtual and if one dies in the virtual world he/she dies in the real world too. The similar is the case here if not the same.

Do you access internet from cyber cafes?

You went to a cyber café, checked your emails, bank accounts and came back home. Next day your accounts were hacked. If this has not happened with you, it’s about to happen soon. Whenever you are accessing your emails, bank accounts through an un trusted network like cyber cafes there might be a strong possibility that they installed softwares known as keyloggers, trojans or sniffers which can capture your passwords. The question comes how does one detect this? Have a look at the figure on your right. This shows the taskbar of your windows system. If you see unknown icons here, for e.g.- you may see a guy with black hat in the figure shown consult your cyber café guy and ask him what is it and until you are assured that its not a harmful software don’t use the computer.

Cyber Café Owners should implement strong policies and not allow computer users to install their own softwares in order to prevent this crime.

Do you chat to strangers/net friends?

So you chat using yahoo messenger, MSN, Rediffbol or ICQ. Almost everyone uses them, makes net friends, share photos and other stuff online. An example of photo sharing on yahoo messenger is shown in the picture underneath

If you receive files through the internet from people then you might be in trouble. A person might pretend to be your friend but is a social hacker who will use your trusting nature to hack you. You might be saving his photograph but it might contain a virus or a spyware that may infect your computer. It may also contain a hidden software known as a trojan that will automatically install on your system and used by the hacker to control your system. This has led to serious crimes in the past and is only bound to increase. The solution to this is being smart on the internet and not falling in traps of such people. It’s better to take more time to trust a person than to fall in such traps.

Have you put your profile on orkut, fropper or any other social network?

We are living in the age where online social networks, online dating have become an important part of our lives.  But this source of entertainment has dangers of privacy. Time and again pictures loaded on social networks are morphed and converted to pornographic or nudity. Privacy has become an important issue with these social networks. With the evolution of social networks online dating sites like fropper have become famous too and people have become open to the concept of online dating. In fact its an evolution in itself. However while using these entertainment sources we should be cautious of not putting pictures that can be easily morphed and be stringent in trusting a person. It’s generally recommended that do-not give away information regarding you which can be used harmfully by a person on the internet.

Do you ask your friends to check your emails?

You might be lazy o check your emails sometimes. But does that mean that you can be lazy enough to share passwords with friends on the internet. It’s generally suggested that you should not share your passwords with anyone. The more number of people who know your passwords the greater chances are of it being hacked. This can cause serious problems to both your real as well as virtual lives if you are unaware. Your email id can be used to conduct cyber crimes using your emails. It can be used by people in your social groups to make you un-popular or affect your relationships with your friends. It can also be used by smart hackers to crack your other sensitive passwords be that of your bank accounts for that matter.

Did you check that email received was send by your friend or not?

Emails can be spoofed and send by another person’s id without hacking into email accounts. Thus it is very important to check whether the email received by you is actually sent by your friend or not. This can be done by simply checking the email header and identifying whether the email generated from the correct source. For example: If it is an email from xyz@yahoo.com and the originating server which comes in the email header is not yahoo.com it means it’s a spoofed email. For details you may visit: www.appinlabs.com

Did you logon to your bank account one day only to find it hacked?

A very common crime known as Phishing has become prevalent these days. Here the attacker sends you a spoofed email from your bank accounts email address asking you to immediately change your password by clicking on a link. Actually this link takes you to a page which is same as your bank page but is hosted by a hacker who intends to capture your username and password. You can see a copy of a Phishing page of Yahoo email. The crime can be prevented by following:

1)     Check the authenticity of the email

2)     Don’t click the URL written in the email instead typing in the URL on the web browser.

3)     Always remember a bank or email account never gives a short notice to update your information.

Countermeasures

1)     Be cautious on the internet. Trust process has to be more stringent than the real world.

2)     Don’t put sensitive information on the internet

3)     Install your anti-virus and firewall and keep them updated

4)     Follow all the above mentioned measures to prevent yourself being a victim of cyber crimes.