Internet Security Tips

The Internet is a wonderful but dangerous place. Thieves from around the world constantly come up with new ways to deceive with the intent to gather your personal information. Follow these basic guidelines when dealing with suspicious activity.

The signs of fake emails

Legitimate online service providers do not ask for you to confirm account information by email. If you receive an email that asks for you to provide any kind of account information, especially login and password information, it’s fake. This deception, called a “phishing scam” can look very official and be quite convincing. However, upon closer inspection, you may notice slight grammatical and spelling errors, strange return addresses, and strange recipient names. Most email spoofing schemes originate from foreign countries. Return email addresses are easily faked (called "spoofing") and do not truly represent where the email originated from.

The following is a recent example of a fake email sent to Integra customers:

Dear Integraonline Email Account Owner,

This message is from Integraonline messaging center to all
Integraonline email account owners.

We are currently upgrading our data base and e-mail account center.

We are deleting all unused Integraonline email account to create morespace
for new accounts.

To prevent your account from closing you will have to update it below so
that we will know that it's a present used account.

CONFIRM YOUR EMAIL IDENTITY BELOW
Email Username : ......... .....
EMAIL Password :................

Warning!!! Account owner that refuses to update his or her account within
Seven days of receiving this warning will lose his or her account
permanently.

Thank you for using Integraonline!

Also, be suspicious of links embedded into the email that direct you to a web page or site. A common technique is for thieves to create a fake web site that looks just like the real thing. These sites hope to capture your login and password with the intent to overtake your account. When you need to access your account at any online service provider, be sure to go to the web site directly, not through a link in an email.

Suspicious email attachments

A very common and significant security threat is a virus attached to an email. Although Integra’s service includes anti-virus and spam scanning, no systems are 100% foolproof. Known viruses are caught and quarantined, but as thieves create new techniques, there can be a lag between the new threat and any scanning system’s ability to detect it.

Always be suspicious of email attachments from parties unknown to you. However, even known parties can be sending email with viruses unknowingly. Any attachment that requires you to install a program or file is likely trying to place snooping software on your computer. This approach, called a Trojan Horse, is especially threatening. Once a keystroke capturing program is installed on your computer, it will capture account information for all the sites you visit.

Keep your computer up to date

An important aspect of maintaining your security is updating your computer. Vendors update the operating software on your computer to address security vulnerabilities. Keeping your computer up to date with software patches fixes these vulnerabilities.

Use security and firewall software

Be sure to use any security or firewall software that came with your computer. Many free and for fee security packages are available. These systems protect you by scanning attachments or files you interact with in real-time and also scan your entire system at regular intervals.

Use difficult-to-guess passwords

The importance of using good passwords cannot be overemphasized. Simple nouns and repetitive numbers are easy for thieves to guess especially with the brute force of computers employed to apply thousands of letter and word combinations to crack your account.

A good strategy is to use mixed case, punctuation, and letter combinations that do not make up simple nouns like names, places, and things. Thieves have been known to apply a “dictionary attack” to crack passwords – so make sure your password is not found in the dictionary!

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