Identity theft risk elevated for millions of Facebook users
If you’re among the 100 million users of Facebook, you need to know about this week’s New York Times’ story on a recent blitzkrieg of phishing attempts, malware, spam, viruses, Trojans, worms, account deactivations and out-and-out computer takeovers.
Losing you Facebook account is a bummer, but the huge fallout of all this is the increased risk of identity theft. You need to protect yourself. If all this is new to you, these are the basics of computer and identity protection:
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Phishing: If you get an email from a sender that claims to be your bank, credit card issuer, or an e-commerce site you’ve bought from, and in it they request confirmation of any of your account information, it’s a phishing expedition. None of these folks are ever, EVER going to request this information by email or phone.
Don’t be fooled by a logo; they’re easy to cut and paste.
Don’t click on any embedded links; they’ll lead you to a bogus website where they’ll try to harvest your info, and slip viruses or spyware onto your hard drive.
Don’t reply; again, that just gives them easy access to your hard drive.
Immediately close the email, and contact the purported vendor or account issuer to let them know of the phishing email.
Protect your computer behind a firewall. ZoneAlarm has good stuff—free and otherwise. For the free stuff, check out their link on CNET, or Google ZoneAlarm and try out their 15-day free trial.
Install antivirus software and update it regularly. Avast is free and good, and it can be downloaded from the internet in just a couple of minutes.
When it comes to identity theft protection, no other company provides as extensive and effective an array of services than Life Lock. With more than 1 million customers, LifeLock is leader in ID theft protection. Check out their services at LifeLock.com. If you like what you see, enroll using the promotional code RD17 and enjoy the benefit of a deep discount.
