Right now millions of hackers, spammers and scammers are hard at work. They're after your Social Security number, bank account information and social media accounts. With any of these, they can steal your money or trick your friends into giving up theirs.
The best way is to know how hackers do what they do. Once you know that, you can counter their malicious acts. Here are three popular hacker strategies.
Phishing scams: Lucky you! A Nigerian prince has selected you to help smuggle millions out of his country. For a little bit of effort - a few simple wire transfers - you'll get a substantial cut. What could be easier?
Other versions might say you won a contest or have a job offer. Maybe someone wants to meet you, or you can make money for shipping some goods.
Use common sense before reacting to any email. Scams rely on making you act quickly. If you think about things long enough, you can usually see through them.
Trojan horse: Many hackers disguise a virus as something harmless. This is called a Trojan horse, or just Trojan.
One of the most popular ways to deliver a Trojan is a variation of the phishing email scams.
For example, the email might say it's from a shipping service, bank or other reputable company. There's been a problem with a transaction! To learn more, you have to open an email attachment.
The attachment might look like a normal file, but it really contains a Trojan. Clicking on the file installs it before you can do anything.
Similar scams appear on Facebook and Twitter. You think you're going to watch a funny video your friend posted. Instead, a popup tells you to update your video player. The "update" it provides is really a Trojan.
Bypassing passwords: In Hollywood movies, hackers are masters of guessing account passwords. In the real world, however, very few hackers bother.
Instead, they go around passwords. They might get your password from a data breach at a company or website you use.
It's important that you use a different password for every account. That way, if a hacker discovers one, they can't get in to every account.
Perhaps the hacker slipped a virus on to your system. It records your passwords and sends them to the hacker; no guessing needed.
Kim Komando hosts the nation's largest talk radio show about consumer electronics, computers and the Internet. Listen to her show from 1-4 p.m. each Sunday on KRMG am740 or fm102.3. To read more of her columns or sign up for her newsletters, go to
tulsaworld.com/komando
Original Print Headline: Know your computer scams
Column - Komando
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