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Cyber attacks on Your Computer
Cyber attacks are a threat to all of us. They no longer only affect corporations or public institutions. The computers, tablets, cell phones, and other smart devices of private individuals and smaller companies are also specifically threatened - if you don't take adequate precautions. Our columnist Udo Vetter explains how to protect yourself against cyber attacks.
I don't know about you. But I do suffer from the flood of emails that reach me every day in my law office. Unfortunately, this includes a considerable number of messages whose senders are only intended to defraud or harm me.
"Do I know the sender? Does he have a reason to
contact me?"
Identity Theft
- Private and At Work
These people want my access data for online
banking so that they can empty my account for me. Or they want to hijack
my office network to use it as a spam sling or to block all of my
data. Then I should pay the blackmailers money if I want to have access to
the hard drives again.
Unfortunately, the hackers are very resourceful to outsmart you and me. They
arouse curiosity, for example, because the subject of the email speaks of an
"invoice". Or of a “last reminder” or “termination”. In
other cases, express delivery is announced. Or really bad: The
recipient is made insecure by the prospect of a visit from the bailiff, or even
one House search by the police.
All of these emails have one thing in common: The recipient should only find
out more when he opens the file attachment. But clicking on the attachment
activates an executable program (Trojan horse) that installs malware on the
computer.
With a different scam, the user should click on a link in the email. The
sender pretends to be a reputable company (e.g. the house bank or the e-mail
provider). If the user complies with this request, he ends up on a page
that is deceptively real. There you should then enter your own login data
- with fatal consequences, of course.
With the data obtained, the perpetrators not only clear accounts. You can
then also use the Identity deception Disguise as the
recipient, place orders, or get others to pay. For example, the perpetrator
appears on eBay under the name of the victim and has goods paid for in advance.
Phishing and
How to Protect Yourself
These illegal methods are called Phishing, Pharming, or spoofing. How
can you protect yourself against it? First of all, a healthy amount of
attention helps. Do I know the sender? Does he have a reason to
contact me? If I cannot clearly assign an email to my business or private
life, the attachment remains unopened. In case of doubt, the world will
not end of that.
In the case of links, it helps if you don't follow them blindly, but go to the
website of the company or bank in question yourself. You should make sure
that a secure connection is established. It can be recognized by the
prefix “HTTPS: //”.
Firewalls,
Spam Filters and Anti-Virus Software
Provision can also be made technically, even
in a simple manner. In any case, you should activate the firewall that
comes with every operating system. The spam filter in the e-mail program
should also be switched on. The modern filters automatically sort out a
large part of the fraudulent emails and work very reliably.
Also, you should definitely get prominent antivirus software. The big providers
are now selling inexpensive packages for all operating systems. This not
only protects the house computer, but also all tablets and cell phones in the
family or company.
Passwords and Backups
The choice of good passwords is still very
important - regardless of whether you are a private or business user. Passwords
should contain as many letters, numbers, and characters as possible and should
not be guessable if possible. Birthdays are therefore not considered
secure passwords.
It is also important to use a separate password for each account. But who
should remember all the passwords? In my experience, this is not even
possible. That's why I've been using a password manager for years, which
is rated well in independent tests. With this software, I can easily manage
all of my accounts and passwords and create super secure passwords.
Finally, important data should be backed up regularly by copying them to an
external storage medium. Above all, this includes an external hard drive. This
should normally be separate from the computer.
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