The Hacker Next Door - Five Types of Cyber Bad Guys and How to Avoid Their Bags of Tricks

The biggest threat to your computer is not viruses. It is the 5 types of people who create these online threats. Keep reading to find out about these dastardly devils and how they trick you into playing their game.

Types of hackers

There are a lot of bad guys online. They each do it for separate reasons, but they all share one thing in common: they find the computer is the easiest way to reach their goals.

The Teenager Down the Street

If you all of a sudden notice, your computer is acting slower than usual, but no crazy things have shown up on your credit card statement, this is probably the work of the Teenager. This hacker has nothing better to do than figure out the vulnerabilities of the TCP/IP stack and use you as a test case. This bad guy isn't interested in stealing anything and might just erase your hard drive just for kicks.

This can easily be remedied, since the teenager usually doesn't cover his tracks very well and law enforcement can find him fairly easily.

The New Age Con Man

Step right up to the second kind of online threat: the New Age Con Man. In the Wild West, miracle medicine salesmen would ride into town, spit a good game, and leave as quickly as possible with your money. Today these con men live on with phishing emails. Looking legitimate, and sounding o so good, these virtual Ponzis use email as their modus operandi. Whether they are a Nigerian prince who has to get you your reward or a male medicine enhancer spokesperson, they sound o so good. These con men are too good to be true and should be relegated to your spam folder. These guys only work if you give them your attention.

Download Me Toolbar Man

Like a circus performer, this hacker has boundless energy. All they want you to do is download this simple toolbar for free. Suddenly, your PC has annoying popups everywhere and you are wondering what happened. Good luck trying to get rid of this guy, he is like an unwanted house guest at Christmas. To avoid this guy, only download toolbars from companies you trust.

Rogue Security Man

Like a good confidence man, these guys come out of nowhere to tell you that your computer has a virus. They want you to download their no-name tool to fix your PC. Suddenly, you have more problems than ever and can't figure out what these guys did. Stay clear of these guys by only download antivirus software from major brands (CA, TrendMicro, Panda, etc.)

CyberMafia

This is the most dangerous group of online criminals. Like a mafia racket, these guys know exactly what they are doing and can fool you pretty quickly. Their goal is to take your money day in and day out and hope you let them stay. To stay clear of these guys, you need antivirus software installed.

Now that you know the five types, you can stay away from them. Look out for more articles about the greatest threats to your PC and how to prevent them.

Until next time

If you don't want to have to deal with viruses, buy antivirus antispam software

J. Andy Greene is an technophile who has been working on computers for eight years. From his experience, he has found there are common mistakes that people make that keep their computers from being secure. Follow his simple advice and you can keep out 99% of threats online. For the other 1%, he recommends common sense and sleeping with one eye open.

For the easy ways to speed up PC and other great reviews of antivirus software.

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Cybercrime - Don't Fall For These Internet Thieves

For the last several days I've been investigating reports on where a lot of our virus and "phishing" problems are coming from. Would you believe, Brazil? Most of Brazil is poor, with an average wage of less than $500 per month. Even so, many Brazilian cities provide free, wireless high-speed connections for those who have access to a computer.

This is a double edge sword. It's great for entrepreneurs interested in starting new Internet businesses, and it allows programmers the opportunity to market there creations, but it also opens the door to individuals who make a living pirating software and music. Even worse, it allows unscrupulous hackers to setup shop stealing passwords and credit card numbers world wide by running elaborate phishing schemes from private apartments able to receive these signals. One reference said that as much as 80 percent of the world's hackers operate from Brazil!

Basically, because Brazil is a third world country, there are few laws governing Internet usage and even fewer people to enforce them. Some of Brazil's laws don't make much sense to us in the United States. Here's what I mean. In Brazil, it's not illegal to break into someone's website, even if it's a business. It only becomes a crime when someone actually steals money while committing the break-in. Even if credit card numbers are stolen, no crime has been committed until they are fraudulently used.

I mentioned phishing earlier. Many of you may not realize what phishing is...but if you've been on the Internet at all, you've probably already been targeted. Phishing, is a practice cyber thieves use in order to get you to give them your bank account, credit card, or social security numbers. It's pronounced "fishing" and that's exactly what they do. The send out bait in the form of an email that looks exactly like it came from your bank, eBay, or Microsoft. They use the correct logos, wording, even the return address (of course, it's not the real return address) looks authentic. When you fill in the information they've requested, it goes directly to the cyber thief who then steals your money.

Because these people work out of places like Brazil, or other countries (India and Russia are also at the top of the list.) where there's little that can be done about it...thousands of US citizens have lost millions of dollars and continue to do so. Setting up a phishing operation isn't hard. There's a "hacker" magazine in Brazil that prints this kind of information on a monthly basis. Over 20,000 copies a month are sold at newsstands. You can also find them on the web. I don't want to give them any free advertising so I won't print a link to their website, but I did download one of their publications entitled "Phishing for Fun and Profit." Scary!

The governments might be trying to get a handle on things, but with all of the other problems happening in the world today, I'm afraid that cybercrime is just not something that's very high on their 'to-do' list. It's going to be up to you to protect yourself. Keep your virus and spyware definitions current and running at all times. Don't click on suspicious Pop-ups. And most important of all, NEVER give out any financial information to anyone asking for it in an email!

Randy Benjamin is an author and syndicated columnist. His latest books, "FREE Internet" and "How To Publish Anything On Amazon's Kindle" are available on Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle e-book formats. For more information, visit his website: http://www.randybenjamin.com.

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