Fighting Off Cyberscammers
Everyone is at risk of being scammed now.
The recent ransomware attack on Colonial Pipeline was a wakeup call for everyone in America.
Ransomware is malicious software that cyberscammers use to encrypt a company’s or individual’s data and block access to it until a hefty sum of money is paid.
Google the words “ransomware attack” and you’ll see a sizable list of big companies and entire cities that have been completely shut down by increasingly sophisticated scammers.
But it isn’t just businesses and government agencies that are at risk.
In the digital world we all live in, cyberscammers are working overtime to come up with ever-more-clever schemes to defraud us.
As I was writing this column, my email queue pinged.
I opened Outlook and saw a special credit-card offer from my bank — except that it wasn’t from my bank. It was from an Internet address that had nothing to do with my bank.
“Click here to apply” is what the email urged me to do. I didn’t click it, of course, because this is a common tactic that scammers use to gain access to your computer.
By clicking the link, I would have downloaded a malicious code onto my computer that would have given cyberscammers the ability to root around, hoping to find login and password details to gain access to my banking or credit card accounts — and take me to the cleaners!
...continued
Copyright 2021 Tom Purcell, All Rights Reserved. Credit: Cagle.com
