Four Simple Tips to Keep Your Identity Safe
Computers are a wonderful thing. I should think so; I make my living using one! They offer unparalleled convenience in our lives. At just the click of a mouse or a single stroke of a key, you can pay bills, order gifts and have them shipped around the world, transfer money—even earn a college degree!
However, this ease of information exchange also comes with a price: new ways to be victimized by scams, fraud, and outright theft of personal information.
Don’t despair! There are simple, common sense steps you can take to reduce your risk of losing your information, your money, and your identity to con artists, and you don’t have to give up the convenience of the Web!
Tip 1: Don’t give ANY personal information to anyone unless you initiated contact.
Most commonly, people fall into the trap of giving away bank account numbers, Social Security numbers, credit card numbers, usernames, and passwords after receiving an email from a bank or credit card company asking for a customer response. Sometimes, these emails will ask for this personal information to be returned in an email, but more often, they will provide a link to a website.
This technique, often called “phishing,” creates emails that often warn recipients that their account or personal information has been compromised or that they are in danger of having certain privileges, such as use of a credit card, revoked. While it used to be easy to tell these bogus emails from genuine ones, many phishing emails now look quite official, using logos, legal language, even real customer service telephone numbers!
Most banks, credit card companies, and other businesses that handle sensitive information will not ask you to give personal information via email. In fact, it’s always good practice never to give any personal information unless you initiated the contact. If you receive such an email, visit or call the company (with their customer service number that you have on file, not in the email) that’s asking for the information to determine if the communication is legitimate. It’s an extra step worth taking to protect yourself!
Tip 2: Always check website addresses.
Before you divulge any sensitive information on a website, check the website address, or URL, first. Make sure that it begins with “https://”, not “http://.” That extra “s” means “secure,” and that means that there is a security certificate for the website that encrypts all information that is sent over the internet. Never give any personal information to an “http://” address.
You should also make sure that you have the correct URL given to you by your bank, credit card company, or other institution. Some scam artists set up fake websites using URLs close to the real ones, for example, “anytownbanks.com” when the real website is “anytownbank.com.”
Tip 3: Always check security certificates.
Another good piece of advice is to check the security certificate before giving personal information. You can do that by clicking the padlock icon that appears in your browser, usually in the address bar but sometimes along the bottom of the screen. A new window should pop up, giving you information about the security certificate. All you need to look for is that the certificate hasn’t expired and that it matches the domain name of the website. For example, a certificate for “anytownbank.com” should be registered for “anytownbank.com.” Most browsers will warn you with a popup window if these parts of the security certificate aren’t correct, but you can always check anyway.
You should also be aware of another scam called “pharming.” This is when a hacker builds a fake website that mimics a real one and hijacks the information that tells your computer’s browser where to find the website. So your browser is trying to go to “anytownbank.com” but is given the wrong information on where to find the real website. While this sounds frightening because you may not be able to tell the difference between the real site and the fake one, the fake website will not have the correct security certificate…or even one at all.
If you doubt the legitimacy of a website, call the customer service number you have on file for the company to verify that you are using the real website.
Tip 4: Never download software from sources you don’t know or without reading the End User License Agreement.
Spyware and adware, unwanted software programs that track your computer activities and report them to a third party, can engage in key logging, which simply is logging your keystrokes. This can open you up to revealing usernames, passwords, account numbers, and other sensitive information to unknown sources.
Often, this software comes in the form of email attachments or as downloadable software. Before you open any email attachment, make sure it’s from a trusted source. You can even ask the sender if he or she sent it to you. (Sometimes, viruses disguise themselves as emails from people you know when in fact the people you know never sent them to you.)
Before downloading software, particularly free software, read the End User License Agreement (EULA). The EULA will reveal if extra software comes with the package and if you are agreeing to submit information involuntarily. Also, never download software from an unsolicited source and from popups that warn you that your computer is at risk. These are almost always clever disguises.
Keep your computer up to date with antivirus software and spyware detection programs to keep your information safe.
Use common sense.
With all this said, don’t be afraid to take full advantage of the technology available to you. Just remember that a little common sense and careful Web surfing can keep your personal information and identity safe. And always contact your bank or other institutions if you fear that personal information has been compromised. It’s just like that adage: “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” So get out there—do your banking, buy your gifts, and earn that degree!
Beware of Domain Name Renewal Opportunists
Imagine this. You have a successful business or organization website. It generates a good amount of traffic and develops leads for you. You have a carefully chosen domain name registered. It’s natural, then, that you would want to protect your website and keep it running smoothly.
You then receive a notification in the mail warning you that your domain name is about to expire and that you should renew immediately. You don’t think you’ve dealt previously with the company who’s sending you this notice, but you certainly don’t want to risk losing an integral part of your business. So you send payment to them to take care of it. And you may add a few more domain names that they suggest as well.
Because these mail solicitations appear official and resemble invoices, some people are quick to respond and send money. What people don’t realize is that these solicitations are just that: solicitations.
This situation is all too common with websites today. It’s unfortunate because responding to these solicitations places your domain name in the hands of a new and unknown company. This new company may make it difficult to make changes to a domain down the road, as well as charge a lot more for a domain renewal than your current domain registrar. Worse yet, these companies have been known to register your domain in their names, not yours, effectively handing your ownership over to them.
It’s very similar to the “slamming” of several years ago, which is the process of changing someone’s long distance carrier without their full understanding. In effect, these domain companies are doing the same thing: taking someone’s domain without their full understanding. While these tactics are unethical, they’re not illegal.
It’s simple to protect yourself and your domain. Never respond to a “renewal” for your domain, particularly those that come in the mail, without checking it out first. You should keep records of who your current domain registrar is. That way, you’ll know if the renewal is truly a renewal…or just a solicitation. Always check with the company or firm where you registered your domain name before renewing your domain anywhere.
The Browser Butchered My Website!
Have you ever had the misfortune of having a finished website and proudly showing it off to your family and friends, only to have someone ask, “Why is there a big blank space on the right?”
You answer, “The main text is there.”
Then, you get, “Where are the navigation links?”
You answer, “Across the top.” You also start to wonder if your family and friends are going blind; after all, you see these things as clear as day on your own computer!
The types of questions can go on and on. And after you’ve spent good time and money putting together your new website that makes you proud, these are not the questions you want to hear, especially when you begin to wonder what potential customers will see!
So what’s really going on?
There is no one-size-fits-all solution, but one possibility could be the viewer’s internet browser. An internet browser is the piece of software you use to surf the internet. Chances are, you are viewing this article on the internet right now, and you’re doing it through a browser, most likely Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Safari (in 2008). Of course, there are many other browsers out there: Opera (my personal choice), Netscape (which has officially ended), Flock, and on and on.
As with everything else in life, there are choices for viewing the internet, and most of them are free and easy to download. Each offers different features and perks as well as a few drawbacks—all dependent on your personal opinion.
But why does my website change in different browsers?
The answer to this question is long, but I’ll try to keep it brief. It’s because of a war.
In the mid to late 1990s, as the internet was grabbing everyone’s attention, Netscape was the browser of choice. Then, Microsoft introduced its own browser, Internet Explorer. As the World Wide Web was still a new medium (at least for mass consumption), there wasn’t much of a standard way of designing how a website should look. So Netscape and Internet Explorer developed their own ways of rendering a website and also introduced special proprietary code that would work only in one browser or the other. This fight for dominance between Netscape and Internet Explorer is referred to as (cue dramatic music) the “browser wars.”
Quite simply, this meant that web designers and developers unintentionally created websites that would look different depending on the browser used. Some designers used special workarounds to maintain a consistent look across browsers. Others put messages such as, “This website is best viewed with Internet Explorer,” on their websites and ignored the other browsers.
Around this time, the World Wide Web Consortium (abbreviated as W3C) developed standards so that websites would look consistent across all browsers. Of course, the browsers had to implement these standards. However, when Internet Explorer finally dominated the market, Microsoft left Internet Explorer 6 as their latest browser from 2001 through 2006, quirks, non-standards compliance, and all. (Internet Explorer 7 launched in the fall of 2006, still without full standards compliance but markedly improved over its predecessor.)
While Internet Explorer 6 stagnated, other browsers entered the market, such as Firefox, Opera, and Safari, all following standards compliant rendering as best as they could. Of course, minor quirks still exist, but all in all, they followed the standards and put their marketing into features and “add-ons,” rather than how a website would look.
So what’s a website to do?
The best piece of advice I can give is to plan ahead. Make sure you or your designer take care to use standards-compliant code when creating your website. W3C standards compliance will help ensure that your website will render correctly now and in the future. There are also fixes, hacks, and other workarounds to use to help your website render as you wish it to appear in a certain browser; most of these workarounds are for Internet Explorer since it is the most behind in terms of standards compliance. However, try not to rely too heavily on hacks in particular since they may cause problems in the future.
It’s also wise to test your website in as many different browsers as possible before going live. This exercise will show you where you may need to fix things before launching. Incidentally, www.browsershots.org allows you to type in the address for a web page, and it will show you how it looks in almost 70 different browsers (this may take up to an hour or more).
If you plan ahead and have your website designed to be cross-browser compatible, you will save yourself from answering embarrassing questions later. And you will also allow more potential customers access to your website!
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