Phishing : Examples and its prevention methods

What is phishing?

Phishing is a technique used to gain personal information for purposes of identity theft, using fraudulent e-mail messages that appear to come from legitimate businesses. The authentic-looking messages are designed to fool recipients into divulging personal data such as account numbers, passwords, and credit card numbers.

A popular method of phishing which use to gain personal information is to collect information through fake websites that look identical to the real websites and an email may be sent to customers to trick them into providing their information on the fake websites. In order to prevent phishing, users should always go to the website directly by typing in the URL to access the site rather than using the links in the e-mails.

Example of phishing:

Other ways to prevent phishing:

1. Guard against spam
Be cautious of e-mails that come from unrecognized senders, e-mails that ask you to confirm personal information through Internet, or e-mails that try to upset you into acting quickly by threatening you with frightening information.

2. Do not click on links
Download files or open attachments in emails from unknown senders. It is best to open attachments only when you are expecting them and know what they contain, even if you know the sender.

3. Never email personal or financial information
Even if you are close with the recipient.It is because you never know who may gain access to your email account, or to the person’s account to whom you are emailing.

4. Be aware of pop-ups and never enter personal information in a pop-up screen

References:

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phishing

2. http://www.microsoft.com/protect/yourself/phishing/identify.mspx

The Application of 3rd Party Certification Programme in Malaysia

The most famous third party certification in Malaysia is MSC Trustgate.com Sdn. Bhd. It is a licensed Certification Authority (CA) in Malaysia since 1999. It offers complete security solutions and leading trust services that are needed by individual, enterprises, government and e-commerce service providers using digital certificates, digital signatures, encryption, and decryption.

The products and services of Trustgate are SSL Certificate, Managed PKI, Personal ID, MyTRUST, MyKad ID, SSL VPN, Managed Security Services, VeriSign Certificate Training, and Application Development.

Managed Public Key Infrastructure (MPKI) service is a fully integrated enterprise platform designed to secure intranet, extranet, and Internet applications by combining maximum flexibility, performance, and scalability with high availability and security. It allows enterprise to quickly and cost-effectively establish a robust PKI and CA system with complete control over security policies, PKI hierarchies, authentication models, and certificate lifecycle management.

Organizations can set up their own multiple digital certification programme quickly, easily and economically, through the flexible managed service. With managed PKI, people can issue 250 or more digital certificates to customers, suppliers, partners, or employees. It helps to protect on-line transactions, digitally sign them and control the access to intranets and extranets.

With the increased phishing and spoofing attacks on the Internet, people want to make sure that they are dealing with trusted parties when they conduct business by using Internet. Trustgate offers SSL Certificates for server security. There are two types of server certificates which are Secure Server ID and Global Server ID.

Secure Server ID enables visitors to verify their site’s authenticity and to communicate with it securely via state-of-the-art SSL encryption, which protects confidential information from interception and hacking.

Global Server Certificate ensures the Web site visitors will receive powerful 128-bit SSL encryption to secure communications and transactions between the site and its visitors.

References:
1. http://www.msctrustgate.com

How to safeguard our personal and financial data?

Nowadays using computers to store our personal data is very common to all of us and almost everyone will rely on their computers to save their personal data and using online financial services to do their transactions such as paying bills or transferring money. However, by just using computers to save our personal and financial data is not safe enough and it may probably be able to be hacked by others to get our information.

Ways to safeguard our personal and financial data:

1.Install a firewall

Firewalls program will help you to prevent from hackers and viruses access to your personal information without your permission. It acts as a guard, blocking the hackers from access to your personal data. Most new computers come with firewalls integrated into their operating systems. If you have an older computer or using dial-up, you may need to buy a firewall separately and install it yourself.

2.Avoid accessing financial information in public

To prevent from logging on to check your bank balance when working from a coffee shop that offers wireless access. Although the systems are convenient but we do not know how powerful their firewalls are.

3.Password protect

Avoid using passwords that are easy for someone to guess, such as the name of your favorite pet or your date of birth and never write this information down and never carry it in your wallet or briefcase.

You have to set a strong password to protect your personal and financial information and should avoid using part of your name, birthday, or other weak password that can easily be guessed.

4. Use our own computer

Avoid using public computers to access our personal accounts. This is because public computers may contain software that captures passwords and pins.

References:

1. http://www.goarticles.com/cgi-bin/showa.cgi?C=1491881

2. http://www.msisac.org/awareness/news/2007-03.cfm

The threat of online security: How safe is our date?

Nowadays, computers are everywhere. They are a primary means of communication for billions of people. Many people believe that computer literacy is vital to success. Computer literacy involves having a knowledge and understanding of computer and their users. Through computers, society has instant access to information from around the globe.

We can get news, weather reports, airline schedules and many others information through computer. Company used the internet to do their business transaction. Since the Internet is a public system in which every transaction can be tracked, logged, monitored and stored in many locations, it is important for businesses to understand possible security threats to their business.


Type of threats:

1. Virus
Computer viruses is a piece of software code that inserts itself into a host which including the operating systems to spread over and harm the users computer. Virus can spread from one computer to another when its host is taken to the target computer. Viruses can increase their chances of spreading to other computers by infecting files on a network file system or a file system that is accessed by another computer.


2. Worm
Worm is a self-replicating computer program. It uses a network to send copies of itself to other nodes and it may do so without any user intervention. Unlike viruses, it does not need to attach itself to an existing program. Worms can destroy data and programs as well as disrupt or even halt the operation of computer network.

3. Trojan horse
Trojan horse is a program in which malicious or harmful code is contained inside apparently harmless programming or data in such a way that it can get control and do its chosen form of damage, such as ruining the file allocation table on your hard disk.Unlike viruses, Trojan horses do not replicate themselves but they can be just as destructive.

4. Computer hacking
Computer hacking always involves some degree of infringement on the privacy of others or damage to computer-based property such as files, web pages or software. The impact of computer hacking varies from simply being simply invasive and annoying to illegal. In either case, they may steal your money and open bank accounts in your name, Make purchases, sell your information to other parties who will use it for illicit or illegal purposes and etc.


The way to prevent the threats is install and update antivirus software. You have to update your antivirus software constantly so that your computer is protected from the latest threats available in the internet. Furthermore, you are advised to install the latest version of anti-virus software whenever it is available such as Kaspersky Antivirus, AVG Antivirus software and so on. Besides that, turning on your firewall application also is one of the ways to prevent threats.

References:

1. http://www.webroot.com/En_US/csc/computer-security-threats-hackers.html

2. http://www.secureworks.com/research/articles/firewall-security/

An example of an E-Commerce failure and its causes

Web businesses reached the peak of the late 1990s. However, many dot.coms are failed in the year 2000. Even some of the strongest and most attractive e-tailers – etoys.com, Pets.com, Furniture.com, Boo.com - filed for bankruptcy.

Boo.com is one of the greatest defunct Web sites and Dotcom disaster listed by CNET on June 2008, which was founded by three Swedish entrepreneurs, Ernst Malmsten, Kajsa Leander and Patrik Hedelin as an online fashion store. Boo.com flopped after having to liquidate and was placed into receivership in 18 May 2000.

The vision for Boo.com is become the worlds first online global sports retail site. The target market by Boo.com is from 18 to 24 year olds and characterized “young, well-off and fashion conscious.”

Why did Boo.com fail?

The main reason failure of Boo.com is the website which is poorly design. The site was heavily relied on JavaScript and Flash technology, but as that time it was very slow to load at a time when dial-up Internet usage was a norm. Hence, majority of users need to wait couple of minutes for the page to load successfully. Besides that, the complicated design required to be displayed in a fixed size window, which limited space available to display product information to customers.

Poor management of Boo.com is also one of the reason cause the failure. Boo.com had only managed to generate £200,000 in turnover from 300,000 customers. Boo’s sales did not match expectations, due to high number of products returned by customers (a service that was providing free, but Boo.com charged for their logistics supplier).

Next, there is overstaff problem exist in the company, that is employed 400 people when it was only estimated it needed 30 people. The company needed countless millions in additional funding is the worst thing that the Boo.com did. Boo.com simply tried to do too much, too soon.

References:

1. http://crave.cnet.co.uk/gadgets/0,39029552,49296926-3,00.htm

2. http://www.davechaffey.com/E-commerce-Internet-marketing-case-studies/Boo.com-case-study

3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C36Z3i_USryY

4. http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2005/may/16/media.business

An example of an E-Commerce success and its causes

Amazon.com is one of the examples of e-commerce success and also one of the best-known names in the internet. Amazon was founded in 1994. In the beginning, Jeff Bezos, the founder, only plan to begin online bookstore. But it now sells just about everything else as well, from music, video, electronics, tools, apparel, kid product, etc.

Amazon.com customer base has grown explosively to more than 49million active customers in more than 220 countries. Sales have increased from $15 million a year in 1996 to more than $6.9 billion today. It means that there is 57 percent average year-over-year growth rate.

Why did Amazon.com success?

1.Product line
- In order to target more customers, Amazon.com has diversified their product line. Besides that, in 2001, Amazon.com lets customer sell used books, CDs, DVDs, etc.

2.Customer service
- To deliver a special experience to every customer, customer can have orders delivery groceries to their house through AmazonFresh.

- Customer can write email, call a toll-free number or use a click-to-call service to contact customer service.

3. Special features of Amazon.com Website
- Amazon.com was first to use “collaborative filtering” technology, which sifts through each customer’s past purchases and the purchasing patterns of customer with similar profiles to come up with personalized site content.

- At Amazon.com, it is convenient for customers to purchase their favorable products. You can log on to Amazon.com, find anything that you want, and order with just a simple mouse click which helps to save a lot of times.

- Customers can browse for product research purchase alternative, share opinions and reviews with other visitors, and chat online with authors and experts.

References:

1. http://www.amazon.com

2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon.com

The History & Evolution of E-commerce

Definition of E-commerce:

E-commerce is the process of the execution of commercial transactions electronically with the help of the leading technologies like Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) which gave an opportunity for users to exchange business information and do electronic transactions.

The History & Evolution of E-commerce:

It was founded in the late 1970s and started to become popular during 1994. It took four years to develop the security protocols and Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) which allowed rapid access and connection to the Internet. E-commerce changed the process of purchasing of available goods and services over the Internet using secure connections and electronic payment services.

EDI was developed to improve the limitation of EFT. It enlarged the pool of participating company which is called Interorganizational System (IOS). An IOS allows the flow of information to be automated between organizations to reach a desired supply-chain management system, enables the development of competitive organizations.

During the year 1984, EDI was standardized through ASC X12, guaranteed that companies would be able to complete transactions with one another reliably. CompuServe offered online retail products to its customers which gave people the first chance to buy things off their computer in 1992. Netscape provided users a simple browser to surf the net and a safe online transaction technology called Secure Sockets Layer in 1994. In 1995, Amazon.com and eBay.com, two of the biggest names in e-commerce are launched. During 1998, DSL provides fast, always-on Internet service to subscribers. This prompts people to spend more time, and money, online. Retail spending over the Internet reaches $20 billion, according to Business.com in 1999. While in 2000, The U.S government extended the moratorium on Internet taxes until 2005.

According to Rich Riley, “an important milestone in the evolution of e-commerce is the development of affordable, easy-to-use e-commerce solutions enabled a lot of entrepreneurs to transform their unique ideas into organizations successful business.” E-commerce is a history of a new, virtual world which is evolving according to the customers’ advantage. The evolution of this will never end.

Web 2.0:

It refers to a second generation of web development and web design that facilitates communication, secure information sharing, interoperability, and collaboration on the World Wide Web. Web 2.0 concepts have led to the development and evolution of web-based communities, hosted services, and applications such as social-networking sites, video-sharing sites, wikis, and blogs.

It allows users more than just to retrieve information. It can build on the interactive facilities of Web 1.0 to provide “network as platform” computing, allowing users to run software-applications entirely through a browser. Users can own the data on a Web 2.0 site and exercise control over that data.

References:

1. http://www.flysyk02.netfirms.com/Ecommerce/History.htm

2. http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/40249.html

3. www.klein.com/dvk/publications/ecommerce.ppt

Google is changing everything....

Google is known primarily for its search engine and its related targeted-advertising tools in which Google had delivered its advertisers far more revenue per click in search results than its competitors such as Yahoo! Google is earning revenue from advertising that related to its Internet search, e-mail, online mapping, office productivity, social networking, and video sharing services. The Google search engine had attracted large number of loyal Internet users who liked its simple design and useful results. Google indexes billions of Web pages so that users can search for their information they desire conveniently through the use of keywords and operators.

Since Google is well known nowadays for its search engine, it is true to said that Google is changing everything and its helps us a lot in searching information and this is parallel with the Google’s mission that is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. For an example, Google is trying to reinvent the spreadsheet as a Web-based application that makes it simple for users to input and share data. Google spreadsheet is a free Web-based application that can be shared with up to 10 users simultaneously which can overcome a key limitation to Microsoft’s Excel.

Why Google choose spreadsheet? It is because most individual users do not create data bases and the Google spreadsheet can import or export data from Excel’s.xls format or the open Comma Separated Value (.csv) format which aimed at small work teams in social situations or small businesses, but not big enterprises. Data in the spreadsheets are saved automatically with each user action over the web onto Google computer servers.

Google site map had given many benefits to us or others and make our lives easier in navigating and finding the related information in a quick and effective fashion. Through Google site map we can easily determine the location that we want by typing the location names at the search engine and clicking on it. It is free for us to gather information and search information that we want at Google and it is much more convenient for us rather than we need to go to the store just for buying the map or others books for just to find the information we want.

Google can be said that it is changing everything and makes our live easier and Google had helps us a lot in searching information with its technologies in organizing the world’s information universally accessible and useful.

References:

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google

2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Maps

About me- Jason Foo Jia Xin

“Hajime Mashite, Namae wa jesun desu, Dozo yoroshiku onegai shimasu”, A simple introduce of myself from the Japanese language. It means “Hi, first time meeting you, I’m Jason and I’m please to meet you”. I prefer friends of mine call me Jason rather than my full name (Foo Jia Xin) because Jia Xin either in Mandarin or English it sounds very girly.

I born in Johor, a city named Johor Bahru, the border line of Malaysia. It’s very close to Singapore and I travel there a lot during my free time. I love sports, clubbing, and meet new friends. The favorite sport I love is swimming because of the water and the sunshine and so as the moonlight. I enjoy teaching friends to learn how to swim because it’s a passion to me to make everyone can swim and for safety purpose. I love clubbing with friends when there is an opportunity because I have curfews at home. My parents are very strict and I’m okay with that because they taught me to be polite and show kindness to whomever who needs my help.

I love to socialize, without friends I would bore to death. I like to meet new friends and making friends from all around the world. I could go online for the whole day just chatting with friends in Msn. To me, Internet is a multi-function tool to let me gain access all around the world in just one click. I could make new friends, I can get information, and I can burn my free time.

About me-Nicki Tan Yee Wei

Hello Everyone~ My name is Tan Yee Wei. I prefer to be called as Nicki . My friends always make fun of my Chinese name because indirectly translate “Yee Wei” means “I Think”. I’m 21 years old. I’m currently preceding my bachelor degree in UTAR while I’m part-time tuition teacher.I was stay in Cheras since 14years old.

I love reading books, writing and listen to music . Since I love music a lot, I’ve attended hundreds of concerts. Besides that, i also learn guitar to improve my knowledge of music. My favorite singers are Eason chan and Yoga lim. I like their voice so much. I'm strong in the inner as well as the outer. I would consider myself as an adventure person. I’m in love with thrilling adventure and love rock climbing. My friends always say me good with remember names, e-mails and birthdays. I never forget them because friends are important to me.

I’m a Facebook and Friendster Freak. I can surf on Facebook and Friendster all day long just chatting and playing games.To listen different rhythm from different type music, Youtube is one of the website i visited the most.Besides that, to gain more knowledge, wikipedia and google is my first choice. Internet is a very convenient tools for me to get information and meeting new friends.

About me- Loy Phay Zhen

My name is Loy Phay Zhen. Actually, I really don’t know how to introduce myself because there is such a long time I didn’t write a passage like this. So, I decided to introduce myself in the more simple way.

I born in Seremban, Negeri Sembilan, which is the place that I grew up. It’s not the place like KL, but I like this place so much. Simple life is the most attractive thing at here. So, I decided to travel to campus everyday by commuter. Although it is quite tired for me to travel everyday, I’m happy and rather to stay at my home because my home is the most comfortable place for me.

Watching drama, singing, and listening to music are the activities that I like the most. Besides, surfing the Internet is one thing that I will do everyday. I like to chat with my friends through messenger. It is the easiest way to communicate and keep in touch with my friends since we are studying and staying in different places. Sometimes, I’m surfing Internet because of my assignments, such as looking or searching for the information from the Internet and get some ideas from that.

The top 5 websites that I like to visit are Facebook, UTAR intranet, Google, Yahoo, and PPS. Facebook allows me to play some online games when I want to relax myself. I use Yahoo and Google to search and get information when I need some ideas to complete my assignment. PPS is where I can watch the newest drama and last but not least is the UTAR intranet, I get the news and notice of UTAR from that.

About me- Chong Li Ying

My name is Chong Li Ying. I came from Ipoh and studying in UTAR now. Shopping is one of my hobbies. I like to shop because shopping can make oneself to become happier. I love new things so I’ll buy many things when shopping, such as shoes, clothes, cosmetics and others.

Besides shopping, I like to surf the Internet when I’m free. There are a lot of things to do when surfing the Internet, such as playing some online games, chit chatting with my friends through messenger, doing my assignments, get the new information or notice from UTAR intranet, and watching the newest dramas from the Internet. Another hobby of mine is sleeping. Sleeping is another hobby of mine, too. Without enough sleep, my mood will become badly and will feel lazy for the whole day.

The websites that I would visit when online are Facebook, UTAR intranet, Google, and Yahoo. When log on to the Facebook, this is the place that I’ll play some online games here. I love to play games because playing games can stimulate my thought. Google and Yahoo are the best websites for me to gain some information when I need it for my assignments. I can get the information via these websites so that I can provide more ideas when doing assignments. UTAR intranet provides me a lot of notices or anything happens in UTAR. So, I’ll like to log on to this website so that I can get the newest information or notice from UTAR.