BEWARE. Before clicking on any email just take your time and see to it that you are clicking on a message which comes from a secure source. Not taking this precaution will make you susceptible to the guile of thousands of cyber criminals waiting to misuse your identity or sensitive data. This in turn can set you back from a million to a few hundred rupees.
The cyber criminals are using highly sophisticated techniques to play with an individual’s need thereby motivating them to part with personal and proprietary financial information.
According to a study conducted by Dr James Blascovich, professor of Psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara cyber criminals use common emotions like fear, lust, and greed to methodically steal money, information and data.
Email is the most potent tool being used by the cyber criminals to prey upon millions of unsuspecting internet users, who are bombarded with unsolicited mail, some of which often promises bank loans, free credit cards and company of beautiful females and so on and so forth.
Even the most smart internet user is beguiled and charmed into the email offensive as cyber criminals are knocking at the doors using different psychological approaches to motivate the potential users.
There are emails which have a stamp of authority like ‘must complete and submit’, ‘your unique code’; then there are mails which are friendly and say ‘mail from family or friends’, ‘is it you’; the lure of greed is also thrown in, with emails offering free downloads; emotions, love and loss is another aspect of human personality which is attacked with mailers like ‘another week alone’, ‘want a beautiful friend or lonely woman needs company.’
In addition, there are other aspects like cultural affairs, auction frauds, lottery scams, sexual promises that are used to lure a prospective victim to make the kill.
The smart cyber outlaw knows that these enticements will play with the psychological moderators, which include legitimacy and familiarity and help them in netting the prey. In addition, gullibility, lack of rational decision-making and all around knowledge make the net users more prone to crime.
According to the study, a person may be an expert computer user but he might not be well versed with business practices and this can happen in the reverse direction too. If the scam-spam mail looks familiar and legitimate, then the recipient’s doubts are allayed and he is ready to fish in the troubled waters.
Likewise, if the spam mail is promising goodies, then a promotion oriented person is enticed whereas if the message is one concerning with avoiding loss, then a prevention-oriented person is likely to open and use it. Here it must be mentioned that sometimes even opening the email can beset the user with trouble in the form of a virus or a pernicious software download.
Even replying to an unsolicited email can cause serious problems as software can steal your entire proprietary data and financial information, which can be really dangerous.
When the enemy is so clever, then a user might ask-what is the fix for this problem and how can a cyber criminal be kept at bay. The answer lies simply in accepting the fact that everyone including the smartest people using the net can easily become victims of this fraud.
While you are asked to unsubscribe from a spam, just remember that you have never signed up initially to receive these mails and these have been forced down your throat, albeit digitally.
Don’t publish your email on any discussion forum or website but if still you want to join any forum then get yourself an additional email account for this purpose.
Use a separate email account for signing up for journals, magazines, trade fairs and similar such services.
Don’t unsubscribe from an email message immediately and keep it in a separate folder for some weeks in order to review it.
Please remember never to reply to spam and also do not buy anything from spammer, if you do not want to lose your money, identity and peace of mind at the hands of the cyber criminals.
Source :http://www.merinews.com/catFull.jsp?articleID=125566
Forget yourself for others, and others will never forget you.
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