There are many times when you may be out shopping and see something that you want to buy but are not sure if you have the money in the bank so you whip out your Smartphone to check your bank balance but is that a smart thing to do?  Are you safe from being hacked and having an identity thief get your personal information and cleaning out your bank account?  There are some people who are nervous about using their Smartphone for online banking and will use a credit card for the purchase instead of checking their balance via their Smartphone.

Here are some things that you should and should not do to make using your Smartphone for your online banking needs.

Do….

• Make sure that you stick to using your bank’s apps for mobile banking.  If there are any well-reviewed and trusted third-party personal finance apps you can use them instead.  These you can download directly from the app store for your Smartphone type.
• Look at your phone as a personal computer and you will be able to minimize your risks of identity theft or being hacked. One thing that you can do is for identity theft protection is to install antivirus software on your Smartphone just like you would do for your laptop or computer.
• Make sure that you keep track of your Smartphone and know where it is. If you keep it in your purse make sure that it cannot fall out or that no one can steal it from your purse.  When you are out and about check often to make sure that you have your Smartphone with you.

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This is a malicious and fraudulent software being advertised as security software of a virus scanner and is also known by the name “Rogue Scanners.”    Once this gets into your computer system the software will usually display virus alerts that are false.  You will then get instructions to buy the full version so you can remove the “fictional” viral infections.  Customers who have fallen for this hoax not only waste their hard earned money but will sometimes end up with other charges on their credit card.  These charges are higher than what they expected to pay and the charges may continue to appear on their credit card statements even if you cancel.

There are three ways that you can encounter these rogue scanners; you see an advertisement offering a system tune up or the ad is offering a free virus scan, you click on a website that is fixed to exploit software vulnerabilities, or you get an email that is disguised as a news alert or a greeting card.

How to prevent scareware

This type of software is sometimes delivered through advertising channels that are legitimate and found on various websites.  The best way to prevent an infection from scareware is to disable active scripting that is being fed through a third party website.  Make sure that your anti-virus and anti-spyware that is legitimate is up to date.  Make sure that you read any email you receive in plain text and do not respond to any ads from people you do not know.

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When hackers strike it is usually on the large businesses and not the small businesses because they can get more information and do more damage to the large businesses.  Although big businesses still are a prime playground the small businesses are starting to become a more popular target.  At least fifty percent of these attacks are data breaches or hacking while the other half involves malware.

For a small business, cyber attacks can cost them almost one hundred ninety thousand dollars a year.  The reason that small businesses are now having so many hacker attacks or data breaches is that many of them have no anti-spam software, no firewall in place, or no anti-spyware.  Most small businesses think about fixing the problem after an attack instead of preventing it from happening in the first place.

Here are some things that a small business can do to help prevent their business from become a data breach or identity theft statistic.

• Focus on the essential controls and make sure that you are using these controls across your whole business with no exceptions.
• Eliminate any unnecessary data by either discarding it the safe way or if you must keep it, then identify what it is, securely store it, and monitor it.
• Secure the remote access services by restricting services to specific networks and IP addresses.  Make sure that you minimize public access and that your business is limiting access to any type of sensitive information within the network.

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Most everyone has anti-virus software on their computer to help protect their computer from an infected downloaded file. Anti-virus software can sometimes make a mistake and give you a false positive or even have the alert reappear after you told the software to remove it.

Here are some ways to tell if the virus alert is real.

1. Location-Where the alert is located can have significant bearing on whether it is real or not. If you are seeing repeated warnings or alerts about the infection it could be because you have some type of non-active malware that is trapped in one of the folders from the system restore. It may also be just a remnant trapped in some other spot causing the alert.
2. Origination—where it came from might mean anything such as a high risk origin would mean an attachment in an email or files that are downloaded from some file sharing network. High risk can also include a download that is unexpected that is the result from instant messaging or an email link.
3. Purpose—is the file that is triggering the alert one that you need and expected. Consider a file that is unexpectedly downloaded as high risk and is likely malicious. Be careful about what you run on your computer system is one way to eliminate a virus infection. If you did download it, you need it, but your anti-virus software is still giving you an alert, get another opinion. Read the rest of this entry »

Any type of malware is not good but there are some that are more damaging than others causing your to lose files, total loss of security, and even identity theft.  Here are some of the most damaging malware that you do not want to find on your computer.

Overwriting Viruses

There are some viruses that can cause certain file to be deleted and even the whole drive contents.  If a user acts fast enough the deleted files may be able to be recovered.  What an overwriting virus does is to use malicious code and over write the original file using the code.  When this happens, the file cannot be recovered because it was replaced or modified.

Ramsomware Trojans

This type of malicious malware will encrypt files on your infected computer and then ask for money in exchange for the decryption key.  The victim is affected in two different ways.  They cannot access their important files and they are a victim of extortion.

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