How to Avoid New Security Threats

This particular piece of article will help how you can keep yourself and your computer safe from various tools in the cybercriminals’ armory.
Drive-by downloads

What is it? ‘Drive-by download’ is the term used to describe the process of infecting a computer with malware when a compromised website is visited. The website could be specially created by the cybercriminals to infect all visitors, or, more worryingly, it could be a legitimate website that has been hacked into. In the case of specially created sites, the criminals need to attract traffic to the site and so pack the site with popular search terms in the hope of getting visitors straight from search engines.

How can I stay safe? When surfing the web you should ensure you use the latest version of your browser, as older versions can be full of flaws that cybercriminals can take advantage of. Keep up to date with security news, as it isn’t unheard of for browsers to have a flaw so serious that governments warn their citizens not to use them – this happened in Germany and France with Internet Explorer in January 2010.
Social engineering, what is it?

The term ‘social engineering’ covers a wide range of scams, but broadly speaking it is any attempt to trick you into revealing confidential information about yourself. Typically, cybercriminals work this confidence trick by pretending to be someone you trust, perhaps a friend or an employee of an organization that you deal with, such as a bank.

How can I stay safe? We’re often warned not to trust emails if we don’t know who they’re from, but this type of scam shows we need to be wary even if we do trust the sender. If you receive an email seemingly from a friend requesting money, give them a call to verify the story. If you can’t get hold of them, contact someone else who knows them well to see what’s going on. Be very suspicious if you are asked to transfer money via Western Union or similar services, for example. It is extremely unlikely that your bank would ask you to reveal account details in an email, so call your bank to check whether the email is genuine.
Scareware

What is it? Scareware is sometimes referred to as rogue ware or FakeAV. It attempts to convince you that your PC has become infected with malware and prompts you to pay for a software program to get rid of the infection. When you visit a specially created website, you’ll see a pop-up box that informs you that malware has been detected on your PC. Usually it reports a number of infections to persuade you that this is a serious problem requiring urgent attention. You are then offered software and asked to input payment details.
Ransomware

What is it? Ransomware, as the name suggests, is malware that effectively holds your PC to ransom. It renders your PC virtually unusable until you pay money to rid your computer of the malware and is often effective because it asks for relatively inconsequential sums of money, which many victims consider to be a small price to pay to get rid of a very irritating piece of malware. For example, a recent piece of ransomware that originated in Ukraine would change settings in the Windows Registry, preventing the user of the infected PC opening files or printing documents. It also inserted Russian-language text into the Internet Explorer title bar and removed the Windows Start bar. The ransom note demanded that you pay 30 hryvnia (the Ukrainian currency), which works out to about $3.50, into a pay-as-you-go mobile phone account. In return, you are promised a file that removes the infection.
By: Francis David