Alright, it’s time for us to talk about the big elephant in the room. Let’s talk about all those lying ads we see on every site, and all those ridiculous e-mails and messages that we get. Let’s talk about phishing.
Don’t take the bait!
An act of internet crime, phishing is a means of getting sensitive information from people (such as passwords and credit card info) through deceptive electronic communication.
The term phishing comes from the word “fishing”, as it is similar to leaving out bait and waiting for their victims, or ‘fish’, to bite.
As claimed in some of the online ads, I know for a fact that a 50 year old single mother can’t look 22 just by applying mud on her face or whatever the “shocking secret” supposedly is. The internet has been used as a medium to allow a bunch of scams and phishing schemes to try their hand at luring a few unfortunate browsers.
A recent article has outlined that online advertisements have become the biggest threats for spreading malware.
With the fast-paced development of social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, phishers have been taking attempts at them, especially with identity theft as personal information is often revealed in these networking sites.
Phishing has gotten clever, they now use images to avoid anti-phishing filters.
Of course, there are legitimate advertisements out there that don’t have the sole purpose of taking as much money as they can from you, and they usually are more tastefully done than the phishers.
Youtube uses a variety of short video advertisements. We are beyond the age of e-mail transferring, as most e-mail services such as gmail offer various forms of protection against them.
Online advertisements are more likely to be the reason for hackers to spread their malware.
http://www.spamfighter.com/News-8809-Online-Ads-%E2%80%93-New-Virus-Spreading-Tools-for-Hackers.htm
Well the solution seems relatively simple: Don’t click on those ads! You have to use your utmost best discretion to ensure that you won’t be falling down the same rabbit hole other victims have.
antonduell 