Education and awareness are major tools to protect against cyber crime

From January to December of 2008, the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) website received 275,284 complaint submissions. This is a 33% increase compared to 2007. These complaints were composed of many different fraud types such as auction fraud, non-delivery, and credit/debit card fraud as well as non-fraudulent complaints such as computer intrusions, spam/unsolicited e-mail, and child pornography.

The total dollar loss was $264.6 million with the median dollar loss of $931.00 per complaint. This is up from $239.1 million in total reported losses in 2007. E-mail (74.0%) and web pages (28.9%) were the two primary mechanisms by which the fraudulent contact took place.

Education and awareness are the major tools to protect ourselves. But even despite the best proactive efforts, we may find ourselves victims of computer-related criminal activity. You can help reduce online fraud by learning to recognize scams and taking steps to avoid them.

Signs of a scam

Emails with generic introductions which indicate that the sender does not know you. And, alarming or urgent statements that require you to respond immediately.

Requests for personal or financial information, such as user names or passwords, credit card or bank account numbers, social security numbers, date of birth, or other information that can be used to steal your identity.

Misspellings and grammatical errors, including Web addresses. The Web address might look very similar to the address of a legitimate business, with a minor change. For example, instead of www.microsoft.com, the scammer might use www.micrsoft.com.

The text of the link in the e-mail message is different from the Web address that you are directed to when you click the link.

The "From" line in the original e-mail message to you shows a different Web address than the one that appears when you try to reply to the message.

Protection from Scams

Delete spam. Do not open it or reply to it, even to ask to be removed from a mailing list.

Use caution when you click links in an e-mail message, text message, pop-up window, or instant message. Instead, type Web addresses in a Web browser, or use your online bookmarks. You can determine the actual Web address for a link by hovering over the link without clicking it. The Web address appears in a text box above the link.

Do not open e-mail attachments or click instant message download links, unless you know who sent the message.

Do not fill out forms in e-mail messages that ask for personal or financial information.

Create strong passwords and avoid using the same password for your financial accounts.

Always make sure you are at a secure website. Before you submit any personal or financial information, check to see if the site uses encryption. Signs include a Web address with https ("s" stands for secure) and a closed padlock symbol beside it or in the lower-right corner of the window.

Use safer Web browsers such as, Mozilla Firefox.

Make sure you have the latest security updates and always have the automatic update feature turned on.

Make sure your computer’s firewall is turned on and that you use up-to-date antivirus software.

Check your bank and credit card statements closely to identify and report any transactions that are not legitimate.

Never pay bills, bank, shop, or conduct other financial transactions on a public or shared computer, or over a public wireless network.