Little known ways to prevent internet frauds
Tags: agilewebandappde, cyberattacks, cybersecurity
Published: 2018-03-15 07:38:42

---
title: Little known ways to prevent internet frauds
published: true
tags: Agile web and app de,Cyber attacks,Cybersecurity
canonical_url: https://apiumhub.com/tech-blog-barcelona/ways-prevent-internet-frauds/
---

The Internet is no doubt a great and an informative place. But like every other thing on this earth  
 it has some demerits too. Internet fraud occupies the top position in the list of current internet security issues. Every year a lot of people are defrauded online. And today we will look at different ways to prevent internet frauds.   
  
 Combing new and [advanced technologies](https://apiumhub.com/tech-blog-barcelona/disruptive-technology-innovations/) with some old tricks do the work for them. In this  
 way, they can get personal information and money from the people. Hackers are everywhere.  
  
 The most prominent trick that scammers do is that they pretend to be the one to whom you can  
 trust and get their desired information from you, but there are some more!   
  
 Here is the list of ways to prevent internet fraud that this article covers:

- Free trial offers
- Data breaches and skimming
- Unsecured internet connection
- Update OS and other software
- Online retailers
- Email Account compromise
- Investment frauds
- Hitman scam
- Fake software
- Online job scams

 

## Ways to prevent internet frauds

 

### 1) Free Trial Offers

The first way to prevent internet frauds is to take care of the free trials. You must keep yourself skeptical about the free trial software offers. Some companies use it to bill you.  
 They give you a free trial for their specific products, and then they bill you for many months  
 until you cancel the offer yourself.

**Working with Trial Software**

Note down the following things before using the free trial software:

- Do read the cancellation thoroughly before signing any trial software offer.
- Do check your monthly statement to so that scammers are not charging you for anything  
 that you don’t know.

 

### 2) Data Breaches and Skimming

The second way to prevent internet frauds is to be aware of skimming or data breaches. Data breaching is when a hacker breaks into a corporate to steal data.  
  
 By data breaching, some sensitive information like social security number, credit card number,  
 address, etc. are stolen and sometimes sold to a third party too.  
  
 Thus some essential and critical information is released from a secured location and then leaked  
 to an untrusted environment. It promotes the unauthorized use of information too.  
  
 Skimming is a bit different from data breaching in a sense that it occurs in real time.  
  
 Skimming occurs at the point of transaction. When a handheld scanner is used to get your secret  
 information, and then the scammers keep it for later use.

 

### 3) Unsecured Internet Connection

The third way to prevent internet frauds is to connect to the secured Wifi connections. 

- Public free WiFi is not secured.
- While using public wifi it becomes easier for a hacker to monitor your activities on the  
 network
- So you should be much careful while using public wifi and try not to access any sensitive  
 information while using it.

 

### 4) Update OS and Other Software

Make sure you update OS and all security software on your devices to the latest version.

 

### 5) Online Retailers

Scammers also use fake website online to trick you.

- They take advantage of the latest technologies and set up a fake retail store.
- Then they offer luxury items on such websites at very low prices.
- After you have ordered the time from that site, you keep waiting for the delivery of that  
 product and that items arrive never.
- They also use social media website to scam the buyers.

 

**How to Check Shopping Scam?**

Some of the away that you can check to see if there is any shopping scam on the site are:

- They pretend to sell products at much lower prices.
- Immediate payment or payment by wire services.
- No or little information about refund policy and terms and condition
- Fake contact details

 

**Protection Guidelines**

To protect yourself from such scams follow the guideline below:

- Check for the refund policy of that site
- Check the customer reviews
- Look for ‘[https](https://dev.to/apium_hub/https-for-dummies-symmetric-encryption-asymmetric-encryption--ssl-certificate-13b9)’ in the URL as SSL provides security for payments
- Be aware of the false coupons.

### 6) Email Account Compromise

This scam works in a way that legitimate business email accounts are compromised through  
 different computer intrusion techniques, and then they transfer funds to their account in  
 unauthorized ways.

 

### 7) Investment Frauds

Their primary targets are [stock investors](https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-07-03/what-stock-investors-need-to-know-and-why&ust=1521122400000000&usg=AFQjCNHqXMtAA76yn90SAjyZapfhUuON-g&hl=en&source=gmail). Their goal is to steal money and the identities of  
 investors.  
  
 Mostly online newsletters are used to do such type of investment frauds.  
  
 In these newsletters, they offer some information related to stocks to get a fee and this  
 information is also not the correct one.

Online bulletin activity also serves as a hotbed for such type of scams. With such information,  
 they try to alter the stock values. After hindering the stocks, they sell the shares for personal  
 benefits.

 

### 8) Hitman Scam

Hitman extortion scam is the most frequent scam you might have seen online. In such fraud what  
 cybercriminals do is that they send the threatening email to the target victims to get money from  
 them.  
  
 Such scam works in many forms. Sometimes an email is sent to the victim of the kidnapping  
 news of his family member and asks a significant amount in return.  
  
 To make the email more threatening, they sometimes use your sensitive information in that email  
 too.  
  
 Thus it is advised not to share your any sensitive information especially on social networking  
 sites. You might think that you are using a safe network, but you don’t know what type of people  
 are around you.

 

### 9) Fake Software

One of the most common popups that we see on our computer screens is “ **You have been**  
**infected download software XYZ to protect your PC**.”  
 Well, all of them are not the real one. Many are created to resemble the actual ones that some  
 favorite security products use.

- To get rid of such fake popup is to use an antivirus on your PC and scan your entire  
 system.
- Also, you need to be secured while browsing online.
- Sometimes malware like Trojan and keylogger get into the system. Crypto locker that  
 blocks and encrypts the OS is also used sometimes to get money from the victim.
- Besides using your antivirus also use some specialized security products to stay safe and  
 secure while being online too.

 

### 10) Online Job Scams

Well telling you the truth scammers are almost everywhere. You will witness the even while  
 searching for a job too.  
  
 They pretend to be recruiters and use fake job opportunities to attract people and then trick them  
 to get the secret information out of them.

It all starts with a phone call. Such false recruiters call themselves as recruiters from some  
 famous companies and then say that they have gone through your CV online and are interested in  
 hiring you. Thus this is how they trick you.

 

**Get Rid of Job Scams**

Thus while applying for any job whether it be online or offline do follow the guidelines below:

- Research about the company and its employees thoroughly.
- Get information about the person who contacted to hire you.
- Ask different people about the company.
- You may also take help from your any relative or a friend who used to interact with such  
 employees.

 

### Final Words

Internet fraud is penetrating at an alarming rate. But you don’t need to panic a lot as you can avoid it  
 by being a bit more conscious while working online.   
  
 These [cybersecurity threats](https://dev.to/apium_hub/cybersecurity--crossing-the-last-frontier-2hn8) are spreading quite faster. Thus while working online don’t trust  
 anyone.

I hope these ways to prevent internet frauds are useful for you! If you know other ways, feel free to share them in the comments section below! 

 

##  

## About the Author

Allen Jame is a blogger and a web developer. Allen aims to teach people about the internet  
 world. For this reason, he writes articles. You can follow Allen on[Google+](https://plus.google.com/+allenjame) and [Twitter](https://twitter.com/allenjame1991).  

[![Allen Jame author apiumhub](https://apiumhub.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Author-Allen-Jame-1-e1521040638332.jpg)](https://apiumhub.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Author-Allen-Jame-1-e1521040638332.jpg)

 

## If you liked this article about ways to prevent internet frauds, you might like…

 

[Cybersecurity – crossing the last frontier](https://dev.to/apium_hub/cybersecurity--crossing-the-last-frontier-2hn8)

[Mixed reality – Pushing out into the new world](https://dev.to/apium_hub/mixed-reality--pushing-out-into-the-new-world-2n6a)

[Virtual reality technology: main trends, statistics & startups ](https://apiumhub.com/tech-blog-barcelona/virtual-reality-technology/)

[Barcelona; one of the best smart cities in Europe ](https://apiumhub.com/tech-blog-barcelona/barcelona-smart-cities/)

[Elastic search: advantages, case studies & books ](https://apiumhub.com/tech-blog-barcelona/elastic-search-advantages-books/)

[Human-centered innovation: careers, benefits & examples ](https://apiumhub.com/tech-blog-barcelona/human-centered-innovation/)

[Natural language processing projects & startups to watch](https://apiumhub.com/tech-blog-barcelona/natural-language-processing-projects/)

[Barcelona makes it to the top 5 of innovation hubs ](https://dev.to/apium_hub/barcelona-makes-it-to-the-top-5-of-innovation-hubs)

[Top smart city projects & leaders to watch](https://apiumhub.com/tech-blog-barcelona/smart-city-projects-leaders-barcelona/)

[Disruptive technology & innovations to track](https://apiumhub.com/tech-blog-barcelona/disruptive-technology-innovations/)

[Digital health hub](https://dev.to/apium_hub/digital-health-hub-building-the-innovation-ecosystem-3935)

 

The post [Little known ways to prevent internet frauds](https://apiumhub.com/tech-blog-barcelona/ways-prevent-internet-frauds/) appeared first on [Apiumhub](https://apiumhub.com).