Planning to shop on Net this New Year? Avoid scammers’ web
The festive season is here and hectic shopping has begun over the Internet, downturn notwithstanding. A recently released trend shows that Bangaloreans rank fourth in online shopping with USB drives, music players and Indian stamps being the favourites.
Before you fish out your credit card for making those purchase, Express takes you through some incidents when people got phished.
I f you plan to book your tickets online for your holiday travel plans, a word of caution. Recently, a senior manager of a reputed company was duped of Rs 21,920. He had booked a train ticket costing less than Rs 500 online. Two days later, his credit card statement showed that he had exceeded his credit limit.
Worried, he called the bank with which he had the account, only to be informed that someone had misused his credit card and made a purchase worth Rs 21,920. An industry report says that online travel booking is the leader, with a Rs 7,000-crore market size. The McAfee holiday shopping survey found that 53 percent of consumers admit they use the same password for multiple websites or online services. Consumers need to know that free and low-cost tools exist that make it easy for predators to guess passwords and hack into users’ PCs, McAfee advises.
Attackers can also jump on an unsecured wireless Internet connection with a program called a packet sniffer to see what website users are visiting, the passwords they are using, and what bank accounts they are accessing.
Most people never consider the dangers of e-cards. For example, a scam that was popular last New Year was the e-card that included a nasty surprise. When the consumer clicked on the link, they were brought to a malicious website that attempted to download a Trojan software.
According to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, there has been a 100 per cent rise in the number of broadband subscribers between October 2007 and October 2008. India added more than 100,000 users in October 2008 alone.
Cyber law expert B A Mahesh, said, “There are many Acts under the IPC which can address frauds and thefts, however the jurisdiction plays an important role since most Internet offenders are based overseas. It is also a good idea to be on the lookout.’’
Source:ExpressBuzz
Before you fish out your credit card for making those purchase, Express takes you through some incidents when people got phished.
I f you plan to book your tickets online for your holiday travel plans, a word of caution. Recently, a senior manager of a reputed company was duped of Rs 21,920. He had booked a train ticket costing less than Rs 500 online. Two days later, his credit card statement showed that he had exceeded his credit limit.
Worried, he called the bank with which he had the account, only to be informed that someone had misused his credit card and made a purchase worth Rs 21,920. An industry report says that online travel booking is the leader, with a Rs 7,000-crore market size. The McAfee holiday shopping survey found that 53 percent of consumers admit they use the same password for multiple websites or online services. Consumers need to know that free and low-cost tools exist that make it easy for predators to guess passwords and hack into users’ PCs, McAfee advises.
Attackers can also jump on an unsecured wireless Internet connection with a program called a packet sniffer to see what website users are visiting, the passwords they are using, and what bank accounts they are accessing.
Most people never consider the dangers of e-cards. For example, a scam that was popular last New Year was the e-card that included a nasty surprise. When the consumer clicked on the link, they were brought to a malicious website that attempted to download a Trojan software.
According to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, there has been a 100 per cent rise in the number of broadband subscribers between October 2007 and October 2008. India added more than 100,000 users in October 2008 alone.
Cyber law expert B A Mahesh, said, “There are many Acts under the IPC which can address frauds and thefts, however the jurisdiction plays an important role since most Internet offenders are based overseas. It is also a good idea to be on the lookout.’’
Source:ExpressBuzz
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