Gone Phishing

For a while now there has been a type of fraudulent activity known as ‘Phishing’, whereby the bad guys obtain passwords to your bank account by sending you an email pretending to be from your bank.  It goes something like this example:

Dear Halifax Bank customer

Halifax is currently working to improve on the security of all our Online Banking Users as we periodically review certain Accounts which are vulnerable to Unauthorised Access.

We have noticed some unusual invalid login attempts into your Online Account and have thereby limited its ability to send funds.
To remove this limitation and initiate your Account Update Process, you are required to click on the button below to login to your Account..."

When you click on the link you will be directed to a web page that typically will ask for your personal details, account numbers, login details etc.  The web page will look realistic but will in fact be an official looking page on the scammers web server.

Phishing emails come in all shapes and sizes. Some look extremely professional and realistic, whilst others are crude and badly constructed with spelling mistakes and poor grammar. 

An obvious clue to a fake site is that the link will direct you to a domain name that looks real but with a slight difference. For example your bank website may be www.halifax.com.  Take a look at the scammers version which will probably look like this www.halifax.com.d016.cn.  When you look at domain names start at the right and work left.  The primary part of the domain name is the rightmost characters after the dot and the characters just before the rightmost dot.  However, scammers are becoming more and more sophisticated so it is always best to go to the domain yourself rather than click on a link.

Here are some simple precautions:

Never trust an email sender

The return address in an email can be faked. For the less computer literate, that's the bit of the email that tells you who it's from. The sender can choose any name/supposed address they want, so never trust an email just because it appears to be from a legitimate address. It is a well known fact that over 95% of phishing attacks use spoofed email addresses to appear more authentic.

Always Check The Content

Whilst the most professional spoofs may be almost indistinguishable from the real thing, other scams are much easier to spot.

A common technique used by scammers is to include all of the email's text as an image, and have the whole image link to a spoof website when clicked. This is a tactic to avoid email scanners that can scan the text in an email but not images. If you can't click and select the text as normal with the mouse, simple, it's a scam. Authentic emails are never constructed like this.
Bad spelling and grammar is also a dead giveaway, as are places that seem unable to spell their own names, e.g. ‘Alert from Ciitibnk'. Banks and the like don't send out emails with mistakes as bad as these.

Don't Open Attachments

Sometimes a spoof email will come with an attachment. Don't open it! It may be harmless, but there is no need to take the risk. This is the most common way that viruses are spread, and as well as being a scam the email may try and infect your computer with programs that steal information from you without your knowledge. 90% of computer viruses are distributed via email, so don't take the risk.

Update Your Computer Security

Make your computer safer and more secure with these simple steps:
Get an antivirus program (and keep it updated). Antivirus programs sit on your computer and scan every file in case it's infected with a virus. They can then remove it from your system. It is essential to keep an antivirus up to date, as new viruses appear everyday. Most antivirus programs will do this for you automatically.  

Get an spyware removal program (and keep it updated). Ad removal programs are an essential companion to an antivirus, as they can pick up programs that the antivirus can miss. Some programs, known as ‘spyware', are not classed as viruses, but are still potentially harmful, as they can sit on your computer gathering information without your knowledge or consent. Some can even record every keyboard press you make, thus capturing important information such as passwords and credit card details.

Update your operating system. Most people these days use Microsoft Windows, but unfortunately Windows is not flawless, and security holes and other issues are regularly discovered that an attacker could exploit to get inside your computer and steal information. Fortunately Microsoft fix every weakness they find, so make sure you've got all the latest updates at http://windowsupdate.micosoft.com.

Never Give Out Your Personal Details

This is the simplest rule of all. Banks, financial institutions and the like will never ever send you an email asking you to directly verify your account or update your details via an email. It simply doesn't happen. In such rare cases where problems occur they will contact you directly by phone, letter or other means. Even if an email looks authentic, it more than likely isn't. For example, did you know that a link can say one address but actually go somewhere completely different.

Visit Sites Directly

If you are going to visit any site where you intend to enter your account details or similar, you should only go there by typing the site's address directly into the browser address bar, not by clicking a link in an email. This is the only way to be sure you are visiting the real site and not some sort of spoof.

Windows 7 – What’s it all about?

Excitement is growing around the launch of Windows 7 - available from 22nd October.   Microsoft failed miserably with Windows Vista which was launched only two years ago.  The operating system was slow, hungry for resources, and could not run many proprietary programs or communicate with some existing hardware such as printers.
As a result most of our customers have remained with Microsoft Windows XP which has been around since 2002 and has proved to be fairly stable.  Clearly Microsoft had to respond rapidly to retain their customers and have rushed out a new operating system called Windows 7.
Now generally I don’t get too excited about operating systems – after all, they are just a means to launch a program on your PC.  However, Windows 7 has some genuinely good features which will finally make an upgrade from XP worth undertaking..
Windows 7 boots quickly, is highly reliable and more secure. Low hardware requirements mean that it even runs well on most PCs from the last few years, so you don't have to update your hardware just to run Windows 7. At the same time, Windows 7 will make users productive anywhere, and new features like Home Group and Windows Touch make new things possible.

Get to know Windows 7 and see how it can simplify just about everything that you do with a PC. Here are the Seven Wonders of Windows 7:

1. Connectivity

Connecting to devices and networks is easy as Windows 7 instantly shows you the wireless and other networks that are available. You can now access all your computer programs, files, and network resources like never before. Whether at work, at home, or on the road, you can easily connect to other networks or other computers.

With Domain join you can quickly and safely join a PC to workplace networks, while DirectAccess enables remote users to access the office network via an Internet connection - there's no need for a VPN connection. 

2. Speed

Nobody likes to wait so Windows 7 is more nimble and always ready to go. Windows 7 is designed to sleep, resume and reconnect to wireless networks more quickly. Search and indexing are faster, and you can better take advantage of external USB flash memory drives to improve performance.

Windows 7 is leaner and less busy, so unlike its predecessors, it is designed to run speed-sapping background services only when they're needed. So if a Bluetooth device is not being used, then the Bluetooth service in Windows 7 stays off. Windows 7 is also less memory hungry than previous versions, boosting overall performance.

3. Reliability

Improvements to power management in Windows 7 help extend the battery life of mobile PCs, so your laptop is less likely to die at the wrong moment. There's a new tool to diagnose battery drain problems and check battery health. Background activities are reduced and Windows 7 intelligently reduces display brightness to conserve power. Reliability improvements make PCs more resilient, so you will experience fewer hangs and crashes. New troubleshooters resolve common memory management issues, reduce the disruption caused by diagnostics and detect, diagnose and recover from most common network hang situations without notifying you. If there is a crash, then System Restore makes data recovery simpler with automatic backup to home or business networks and can prevent hours of troubleshooting headaches.

Windows Update also helps keep your PCs safer - and their software current - by fetching the latest security and feature updates from Microsoft via the Internet.

4. Simplicity

As the wealth of data stored and referred to increases, Windows 7 makes searching much simpler - results are now grouped by category and contain highlighted keywords and text snippets to make them easier to scan. Few people store all their files in one place these days, so Windows 7 is also designed to search external hard drives, networked PCs, and libraries.

Interacting with the PC is much simpler with Windows Touch. It's available only in the Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate editions of Windows 7 and with the right monitor it
recognises multitouch gestures. This means that you can zoom in on a picture just by pinching your fingers together. Or you can touch an item on the screen with one finger and tap the screen with a second, instead of right-clicking on a mouse. There's also an On-Screen Keyboard, which lets you `keyboard without a keyboard' using the mouse or hot keys instead. You can also input text by tapping directly on the screen.

5. Productivity

By simplifying the way that users interact with their PCs and giving them more options, Windows 7 is easier to use as well as more fun. Innovative new features have the added benefits of improving productivity.

Windows Speech Recognition now works better-and with more programs. So instead of using the keyboard, you can just tell their computer what to do. Narrator in Windows 7 can read on-screen text aloud and describe some events (like error messages), enabling users to be less reliant on their computer's display. In addition, Magnifier helps people with low vision, but everyone will appreciate its ability to enlarge hard-to-see text and pictures.

Windows 7 comes with three simple yet powerful new features called Aero Shake, Aero Peek, and Snap to help users instantly clear through desktop clutter. Also new to Windows 7 are jump Lists which take users right to the documents, pictures, songs, or websites that they turn to each day.

6. Compatibility

Windows 7 is continually tested against a comprehensive list of the most widely-used consumer and enterprise applications and software vendors have worked closely with Microsoft development teams to minimise compatibility issues.

New features include; Device Management which has been designed to make working with cameras, cell phones, and other devices easier and Location Aware Printing, where Windows 7 automatically switches to the nearest available printer when using a laptop.

You can upgrade your existing hardware to Windows 7. Its low hardware requirements mean that it will run well on most PCs from the last few years.

In addition, Windows XP Mode is available for the Professional and Ultimate editions of Windows 7, and helps prevent older business programs from becoming obsolete. For more information visit the Windows Compatibility Centre
www.microsoft.com/windows/compatibility

7. Security

Windows 7 provides greater protection from Internet threats, spyware, and other forms of malicious software.
Backup and Restore has been improved for Windows 7. It creates safety copies of important personal files, so users are always prepared for the worst. BitLocker is another improved feature, and is available in the Ultimate edition of Windows 7. It helps to keep everything from documents to passwords safer by encrypting the entire drive that Windows and the data reside on. In addition, BitLocker To GoT"' provides data protection for removable storage devices such as USB flash drives and greater control on how they are used.