How to Detect Scams?
Like the Wild West and the snake oil sold by traveling merchants, scammers are rampant in the online sphere as well. These can lead to hazards for any unknowing user and lead to a loss of your computer or your money. Thankfully, some are easy to tell that they’re a scammer. But some have gotten better at hiding the truth from you to take your information. So how do you detect scams and the different types of scams?
Here are a few popular types of scams you may come across:
The Different Types of Scams
Phishing Email Scammers
A phishing email is an email sent by a scammer to collect your personal information or account information for their benefit. These often come to your inbox when you least expect them. These make you feel like you expected the email somehow. They will pretend to be PayPal, Amazon, or even a coworker and ask you for personal information. Often, they will have a link in the email to ask you to log into your account. They seem simple enough and sometimes will make the website look legitimate, but instead, they are collecting your information by you just typing it in.
To see if it is a legitimate email or a phishing email, look at the web address. If it’s from Amazon, it will say Amazon.com in the email. Not a jumbled group of letters or have a gmail.com ending. Another attribute you can look for is the logos used. To detect scams, examine the logo. Scammers will often use lower-quality graphics or older versions of the logo.
Ransomware Scammers
Like the headline implies, these scammers will lock out your computer. Then demand you pay them to unlock your system. These can be terrifying for someone. Thankfully an easy way to stop them is by rolling back to the last backup on your computer. You may lose a few files, but a few files are far better than losing your entire computer.
Most of these scammers will hide behind emails or compromised websites that stream content. Through these methods, they may have you download the ransomware files yourself. Or they may download in the background. But either way, the ransomware files begin infecting your mobile device or computer. Make sure you are consistently backing up your computer and avoid websites that aren’t 100% safe. If you detect you have been scammed with ransomware, you can reach out to KVS Computers.
Bitcoin/Cryptocurrency Scammers
Bitcoin has become a popular topic over the last few years, with many of the coins reaching thousands of dollars in value. Does this mean that the cryptocurrency is a scam in itself? No. But, there are people out there who will reach out via social media networks claiming they are giving away dozens of coins to random people. All you have to do is give them the log-in requirements for your wallet. The equivalent would be if some random person walked up to you in the parking lot saying he will give you a million dollars, but you must hand him your wallet first. You wouldn’t trust that, so why trust them on social media?
If you do fall prey to any scammers and detect you have been scammed or you feel something is off about the request someone is asking of you, you can reach out to KVS Computers, and we can make sure you stay safe.