Top 5 Cyber Security Threats & How to Avoid Them

The most common mistakes are the ones which can lead you to lose all your money, in one go, or could leak private/intimate information. The criminals are getting smarter, each day, every day. Cyber-security threats are the reason the internet doesn’t feel safe anymore, everything is noted in there, and can be stolen. With more and more criminals inventing smart ideas to fool the common people, it is you who has to be more vigilant than ever.

There are a variety of crimes people commit on the internet, you probably know about most of them, or has heard someone being victimized to one of these cyber crimes. With things going global, there are gangs from different countries targeting the world. Some are playing out a fairly new and common scam. But, there are many scammers in each country that target their own country’s general audience to scam.

Here are 5 common cyber security mistakes and how to avoid getting scammed.

Before we begin, no matter how the scammer is targeting you, if you be vigilant, you can save yourself from a lot of trouble. Also, if things go out of hands, you should first report it to cyber-crime branch, rather than looking for workarounds.

1. Call Center scam

If you have ever tried selling a product on Craigslist or any other such website, you would have come across people offering obnoxious money for your old used electronic product. They would tell you to send the courier to a specific address through a specific channel, they will even offer money in advance. But the scam actually ceases your product at customs and you got to pay a lot more to get it cleared.

These laws apply to a few countries and these scammers usually have contacts with the customs department of that country so you will lose your product, for actually half the price you could have sold it for. Moreover, you will have to pay extra to settle the case in the customs of the country you shipped it to.

Now, to avoid this scam is easy, you just need to realize no one is going to pay you more than the price you posted. In usual case, these scammers are crazy enough to offer you more price than you put up, and plus shipping of 100$ or so. So, the next time you face such people on any product selling website, make sure you report them.

2. E-mail scams

Millions of small scale and large scammers are relying on the e-mail since it’s very inception. Every other day, we receive e-mails which looks like it’s from someone we trust, but as soon as we look up to the email, it’s completely different from the name. Every e-mail has this option to set your name as whatever you want, which is being taken advantage of since forever.

Suppose you have a bank e-mail stating you have been scammed and to immediately block your card, there’s will be a form you will need to fill out. You need to be really vigilant in this one, it may look as real as the actual bank E-mail, but you need to remember to not fill any detail which is not supposed to be shared. The form may begin with general questions and end up asking you for a PIN or a Password, or even ask you for an OTP. An actual bank’s website would never do that for blocking your card.

If you face this, first of all, pull yourself together, you haven’t been scammed at all. If you really feel you have been, go to your bank’s website and login to internet banking for blocking your card. Do not ever use links from an E-mail, as they may lead you to some other website which are created to phish people. Just call your bank or search their website on google and login to your internet banking to verify information that comes in your E-mails.

3. Tech support scams

We store a lot of things on our PC’s and Laptops. Whenever we call tech support, we usually have to go through a process which involves giving remote access of your machine to call center’s tech support executive. Now, once they are into the system, it’s fairly easy to install various creepy malware and threats.

These viruses can be put to various uses right then, or after, whenever you use your computer without knowing a thing about the virus. These viruses can gather your passwords and other personal data, and keep sending them to the scammer. Since we have half of our life online, this type of cyber attack can lead to potential cyber security threats and risks.

To protect yourself from these kinds of attacks, never ever use a service from unreliable sources. Never trust support staff of some random company and since it’s not only remote access they need, proceed with caution when they instruct you to download something. It’s hard to protect from these kinds of attacks but is something we so commonly use, be more vigilant and you can handle it easily.

4. Phishing scams

As a top blockchain development company, we realize that the new internet would be based on a decentralized system. Until then, phishing remains the no. 1 cyber threat across these scamming schemes. It’s hugely common and even Google can’t really do anything about it. Phishing is basically asking you to fill a form or make you download a virus, with the help of a fake website. Now, phishing can be easy to detect in some cases but is so much tougher when someone good at it, is trying to bluff you.

Phishing is usually done through e-mails, click baits, and forwarded messages. They will usually offer a fake prize for you to come in and fill your details. People usually don’t care about filling up generic details and end up losing a lot of money after. The hacker’s aim is to take you to a web-page, which looks just like, say your bank’s website. At the bank’s website, you fill in your internet banking username and password. While things are improving through 2-factor authentication, you usually end up filling the form and give away very important details to the scammer.

Things to avoid phishing aren’t much, at most you can check the URL to be https, instead of other types. Moreover, you should always set all your logins to 2-factor authentication. For cracking 2-factor authentication, the scammer will face much much more difficulties, since it requires scamming you twice, at the same time, at two different devices.

5. Cyber threats

Cyber-security threats can lead to major consequences for your overall life. People target to steal intimate pictures, details, passwords, everything they can use to ask ransom for, and everything you wouldn’t want to ever get public.

These kind of threats are extra sensitive since they involve so much more than money, it’s about public reputation after all. And if by chance, you get scammed, you can’t delete the data that the hacker already got from your PC, mobile, cloud, or wherever. Things can get real bad, real quick.

To avoid these kinds of threats, you must never share sensitive information with anyone over the internet, you should stop taking random calls, clicking random E-mails, and whatever you do online or offline should always be double checked. It may still get out of your hands, but never accept the scammer’s demands, rather go to the cyber crime branch of your country and report the incident as soon as possible.

Conclusion

The thing to abide by is, all these cyber scammers will always target your fears or greed. Never believe Ponzi schemes you see on the internet, don’t even believe if someone is offering random discounts or offers on random things as meager as insurances. People are out there to get the information they can use against you, but never live in fear, this is what they want. Always make sure you report such crimes, so the scammers and criminals get caught and we can make the world a better place. Stay safe, stay vigilant.