| Wednesday, November 19, 2008 |
| Holiday Shopping Secuirty |
As we approach the holiday season, we'd like to take this time to make you aware of issues regarding your online personal information.
Classic Motoring Accessories use 128 bit encryption in our secure shopping carts.
What this means to you, is your online information -- name, address, and most importantly, credit card information, is protected.
128 bit encryption "scrambles" the data before it is transmitted over the Internet.
When shopping online with us, when you are in the shopping cart, you will see a "https" in the address bar.
"HTTPS" means the connection is secure.
Also, you will see the little lock is "locked" in the bottom corner of your browser.
However, your e-mail box is likely to be bombarded with numerous messages from "bad guys" attempting to collect your financial information.
These messages may seem legitimate, as though they are coming from your bank, from PayPal, even the Internal Revenue Service!
Please, be careful.
As a general rule, your bank will not e-mail you asking you to "click here" and verify your finanncial information.
Just think, they already have that information.
A good rule of thumb is to NEVER click on anything in an e-mail that says it is from your bank.
Check with your bank first and ask if they have recently sent something to you.
99 times out of 100, they will tell you NO.
PayPal, likewise, does not send an e-mail to "PayPal Member".
They address it to you personally.
PayPal will not e-mail you advising you "they have determined that they require additional information from you in order to provide you with secure service".
And, if the IRS needs to contact you, they will most likely mail a document to you.
Additionally, Classic Motoring Accessories will never send you an e-mail asking for your credit card information.
The above scenarios are part of a grand scheme know as "phising". Phising is described by Wikipedia as "the criminally fraudulent process of attempting to acquire senstive finanacial information such as usernames, passwords, and credit card details, by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication."
Clicking on the links in one of these e-mails will take you to a website that looks almost identical to the "real thing".
It is a FAKE site.
Or, by clicking on the e-mail you may install malware, or a keystroke logger on your computer.
Malware is bad enough....damaging your hard drive, or causing never ending pop-up windows.
Keystroke loggers do just what name indicates.
They log your keystrokes and send that data back to the "bad guy" who sent you the e-mail to begin with.
When they see what looks like a credit card number, BINGO! Your credit card informatiion is now HIS.
Please, don't be fooled.
One very easy way to detect if the e-mail is fake, is to hover your mouse cursor over a link in the e-mail.
Don't click on it, just hover.
More times than not, you will see the web address you "think" is legitimate, is actually in some foreign country.....usually China, Korea, Nigeria, or such.
Please.....DELETE the message!
Keep your anti-virus, malware and spam software up to date.
And, no, the Royal Prince of Nigeria does not have 50 million dollars he needs to send to you.
Think about it.
Out of all the people with an e-mail address, he "found" you?
Very smart people have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars replying to the Prince.
Don't be one of them. |
posted by The Detailing Guru @ 11/19/2008 03:20:00 PM   |
|
|
|
