Are you Safe On The Internet?

Gone are the days when you had to stand in long queues to pay your electricity bills, phone bills, income tax returns and almost everything. But easy access to the internet and availability of these services online not just provide relief but of course helps in saving time. At the same time users are also exposed to the threats of identity theft, loss of personal information and spams.

           

If we follow a few golden rules we can easily protect our personal information and greatly reduce the possibility of fraud. Here are some of them:

Security suites

Outpost Security Suite: This is the only free security suite that offers antivirus, firewall and anti malware in a single package. It even offers email and web surfing security for online protection and monitors application behavior to keep a check on malicious infections. Being free, it does have some limitations — only one auto update is allowed in a day. Others need to be manually done. Also, it does not include identity theft protection or technical support.

Norton 360 (v 6.0): As an all-in-one suite, Norton 360 (Rs 1,649) is pretty complete. Apart from protecting against local threats, it has a set of tools for online identity theft protection, to tune up your PC, Email and instant message monitoring as well as browser plugins to warn you of harmful websites & downloads. It even has parental controls to track Internet usage and keep kids safe from online threats. Finally, the price includes 2GB cloud storage. Norton 360 can automatically take a regular backup of important files to the cloud.

Firewalls

Comodo: The free Comodo firewall uses cloud-based data to to protect your computer against online threats and programs. It is capable of detecting most trojans, worms, hacker attacks and even has a sandbox mode where new programs can be run in a protected, virtual environment to make sure that they are not harmful. In 'game mode', Comodo works silently in the background — useful if you don't want to be disturbed while playing a game or watching a movie. Finally, a built in 'TrustConnect' Wi-Fi feature encrypts and safeguards data transfers when connected to a public network.

ZoneAlarm Pro: The Pro version of ZoneAlarm's Firewall (US$ 30/year) protects your computer against hackers and makes it invisible online by hiding your information. It has a built-in anti-phishing tool that stops fake/infected websites from opening on your system and it even authenticates websites to show you which ones are secure and which are not. If an active download is infected, the firewall automatically suspends the download for protection. It even gives you 2GB online storage where the program uploads and backs up important data that can be restored if required.

Mobile

Avast for Android: Avast's free app provides real time antivirus protection and even offers a firewall that can stop any app from accessing the Internet. It even offers SMS/call filtering, an app task manager and can show access rights of each app installed to detect any data stealing. The app has a strong set of anti-theft features that include lost notification on the phone, SIM lock, SIM change notifications, remote restart, remote wipe as well as the option to remotely locate your phone using GPS. The only thing that this free app skips out on is any sort of data backup service.

VirusBarrier for iOS: This $2.99 app can do on-demand scans of content downloaded on to your iOS device. The program scans for malware, adware and hacker tools on the iOS device which might get transferred and then infect the computer (Windows/MAC/Unix) when the device is connected to it. It can scan through zip files, email attachments, files stored online in Dropbox or on FTP severs and can also scan websites for phishing links or other online threats.

More options for advanced users:

Stay safe while downloading: Using Torrents is not illegal - sharing of copyrighted information is. Having said that, if you are a torrent user and are fed up of internet service providers clamping down on torrent speeds or are wary about your privacy being compromised (because of over-zealous media industry watchdogs), you should consider services like www.peerblock.com and www.btguard. com.

BTGuard's paid service completely hides your computer's IP address and provides a secure, encrypted route for your torrent data. PeerBlock is open source and works in conjunction with www.iblocklist.com. It essentially blocks your computer's communication with advertising or spyware oriented servers, computers monitoring torrents or computers which have been 'hacked' ( botnets).

To learn about, Identity Theft, visit- www.cibilconsultants.com
Source: Secondary

Oh Phish! Many Biting The Bait

About 20% Indians claim to be victims of phishing attacks, according to Microsoft Computing Safer Index, a study that reveals impact of poor online safety behaviour.

Released on account of the Safer Internet Day, on February 11, the study claims that 12% of Indians surveyed say they have suffered identity theft at an average cost of Rs 7,500.

The survey was carried out among 10,500 consumers globally in the March-May 2013 period. It asked consumers to share their online experiences.

According to the survey, the annual worldwide impact of phishing and other forms of identity theft could be as high as $5 billion, while the cost of repairing damage to people’s online reputation was at nearly $6 billion.

The internet touches our daily lives for almost everything, from communicating, to work, to shopping to paying bills, says Prakash Kumar, national technology office, Microsoft India.

“But how cautious are we about monitoring our online presence, and taking note of our own vulnerabilities? There are many things that can be done to stay safer online,” says Kumar.

Microsoft asks netizens to protect their online activities by visiting websites that provide a range of hints and guidance for guarding devices, online accounts, performing sensitive transactions over secured networks, taking charge of online reputation and protecting social circles.

In Bangalore, collegemates Adithya Naresh and Yogesh S, students from the Amrita School of Engineering have started a hackers club in their college called Hacs (hackers for applied cyber security).

“The objective is to expose our classmates and juniors to the scope of cyber security and create awareness. We also intend to hold a techfest in this segment early next year,” say Adithya and Yogesh.

Tips to stay safe online: 

1. Use a unique four-digit PIN for mobile devices and strong passwords for online accounts.

Perform sensitive transactions over secured networks. This includes paying bills, banking or shopping.

2. Take charge of your online reputation. Know what information about you is on the internet, reevaluate it, remove unwanted content.

3. Protect your social circles. Use privacy settings to manage the information you share and with whom you share it. Be selective about what you post and accepting friends.

What is phishing?

Phishing is the act of attempting to acquire information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details by masking as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication. Communications from social websites, auction sites, banks, online payment processors are commonly used to lure unsuspecting people.

Rich haul

India faces 1,200 phishing attacks each month, as per industry estimates, while globally, 1.25 lakh phishing attacks were identified in the third quarter of 2013. Losses owing to phishing globally were about $1.66 billion.

Taking serious steps towards setting up a strong cyber security strategy, the central government in July declared its first National Cyber Security Policy, aimed at creating five lakh professionals by 2015.

Currently, there are only about 556 trained cyber security personnels in the government sector in India, as per KPMG estimates. This is minuscule compared with 1.25 lakh in China, and 91,080 in the US.
To learn about identity theft visit www.cibilconsultants.com
Source: Secondary