Beware of Common Internet Scams and Frauds

The term Internet Scam or Internet Fraud refers to any type of fraud scheme that uses one or more online services to conduct fraudulent activities. Internet fraud can take place on computer programs such as chat rooms, e-mail, message boards, or Web sites. In this post I will discuss about some of the commonly conducted scams and frauds across the Internet.



1. Phishing Scam

This is one of the most commonly used scam to steal bank logins and other types of passwords on the Internet. Phishing is the criminally fraudulent process of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication. Phishing is typically carried out by e-mail or instant messaging.


Example:You may receive an email which claims to have come from your bank/financial institution/online service provider that asks you to click a link and update your account information. When you click such a link it will take you to a fake page which exactly resembles the original ones. Here you’ll be asked to enter your personal details such as username and password. Once you enter your personal details they will be stolen away. Such an email is more than likely the type of Internet scam known as “phishing”. Phishing is said to be highly effective and has proved to have more success rate since most of the common people fail to identify the scam.


Most legitimate companies never request any kind of personal/sensitive information via email. So it is highly recommended that you DO NOT respond to such fraudulent emails. For more information on phishing visit my detailed post What is Phishing?


2. Nigerian Scams

This type of scam involves sending emails (spam) to people in bulk seeking their help to access large amount of money that is held up in a foreign bank account. This email claims that in return for the help you’ll be rewarded a percentage of the fund that involves in the transaction. Never respond to these emails since it’s none other than a scam.
In case if you respond to these emails you will be asked to deposit a small amount of money (say 1-2% of the whole fund) as an insurance or as an advance payment for the initialization of deal. However once you deposit the amount to the scammer’s account you’ll not get any further response from them and you lose your money. In fact “The large amount of money” never exists and the whole story is a trap for innocent people who are likely to become victims. The scammers use a variety of stories to explain why they need your help to access the funds. The following are some of the examples of them.


Examples:


■They may claim that political climate or legal issues preclude them from accessing funds in a foreign bank account

■They may claim that the person is a minor and hence needs your help to access the funds

■They may claim that your last name is the same as that of the deceased person who owned the account and suggest that you act as the Next of Kin of this person in order to gain access to the funds

3. Lottery Scams

This type of scam is similar to the one discussed above. In this type you may receive an email saying that you have won a large sum of money in online lottery scheme (ex. UK Lottery) even though you have not participated in any such schemes. The message claims that your email ID was selected randomly from a lagre pool of IDs. When you respond to such emails they initially ask for your complete name and address so that they can mail the cheque accross to you. After getting those details they may also send you an image of the cheque drawn in your name and address so as to confirm the deal. But in order to mail this cheque they demand a small amount of money as insurance/shipping charge/tax in return. However if you send the amount in hope to receive the cheque all you get is nothing. You’re just trapped in a wonderful scam scheme. Thats it.


4. Other General Scams and Frauds

The following are some of the other types of scams that you should be aware of.

In general, be aware of unsolicited emails that:

1.Promise you money, jobs or prizes

2.Ask you to provide sensitive personal information

3.Ask you to follow a link to a website and log on to an account.

4.Propose lucrative business deals

However it may seem to be a difficult task for novice Internet users to identify such online scams. Here are some of the common signs of such scam emails. By knowing them it may help you to stay away.



■All these scam emails never address you by your name. In turn they commonly address you something like “Dear User” or “Dear Customer” etc. This is a clear indication that the email is a fraudulent one

■When you observe the email header you may notice in the “TO:” Field that, the same email is forwarded to a large group of people or the “TO:” field appears blank. So this confirms that the email was not intended particularly for you. It was forwarded for a large group of people and you are one among them

I hope this post helps. Express your opinions through comments.

How to Hack Windows Administrator Password

This hack will show you how to reset Windows administrator password (for Win 2000, XP, Vista and Win 7) at times when you forget it or when you want to gain access to a computer for which you do not know the password.



Most of us have experienced a situation where in we need to gain access to a computer which is password protected or at times we may forget the administrator password without which it becomes impossible to login to the computer. So here is an excellent hack using which you can reset the password or make the password empty (remove the password) so that you can gain administrator access to the computer. You can do this with a small tool called Offline NT Password & Registry Editor. This utility works offline, that means you need to shut down your computer and boot off your using a floppy disk, CD or USB device (such as pen drive). The tool has the following features.


■You do not need to know the old password to set a new one
■Will detect and offer to unlock locked or disabled out user accounts!
■There is also a registry editor and other registry utilities that works under linux/unix, and can be used for other things than password editing.


How it works?

Most Windows operating systems stores the login passwords and other encrypted passwords in a file called sam (Security Accounts Manager). This file can be usually found in \windows\system32\config. This file is a part of Windows registry and remains inaccessible as long as the OS is active. Hence it is necessary that you need to boot off your computer and access this sam file via boot. This tool intelligently gains access to this file and will reset/remove the password associated with administrator or any other account.


The download link for both CD and floppy drives along with the complete instructions is given below

Offline NT Password & Reg Editor Download

It is recommended that you download the CD version of the tool since floppy drive is outdated and doesn’t exist in today’s computer. Once you download you’ll get a bootable image which you need to burn it onto your CD. Now boot your computer from this CD and follow the screen instructions to reset the password.



Another simple way to reset non-administrator account passwords

Here is another simple way through which you can reset the password of any non-administrator accounts. The only requirement for this is that you need to have administrator privileges. Here is a step-by-step instruction to accomplish this task.


1. Open the command prompt (Start->Run->type cmd->Enter)

2. Now type net user and hit Enter

3. Now the system will show you a list of user accounts on the computer. Say for example you need to reset the password of the account by name John, then do as follows

4. Type net user John * and hit Enter. Now the system will ask you to enter the new password for the account. That’s it. Now you’ve successfully reset the password for John without knowing his old password.


So in this way you can reset the password of any Windows account at times when you forget it so that you need not re-install your OS for any reason. I hope this helps

How to Copy Locked Photos from Orkut

Recently Orkut updated it’s security feature and disabled Right-click on photos of friend’s album. So this makes it difficult to copy photos from Orkut. It’s a new security update made by Orkut to prevent people from copying photos from Orkut and misusing it. This may be annoying most of you! Then…



How To Copy Locked Photos From Orkut?
Yes it’s still possible to copy the photos from Orkut.Here’s a step-by-step procedure to copy the photo.
1. Login into your Orkut Account.
2. Goto your friend’s album and open the photo that you need to copy.
3. Once the photo is loaded to it’s full size just place the mouse cursor on the photo.
4. Press the left click button and drag and drop the photo onto the ADDRESS BAR. I think this trick is no longer working. So I have a new trick….


Just DRAG and DROP the PHOTO onto the current/new TAB (If you have IE 7). Alternatively you can also Drag and Drop the photo onto the Desktop. That’s it. This trick is working now!!


4. Now the photo gets displayed seperately on your browser.
5. You can Right-Click and select the Save As option to save the photo onto your PC.

The browser also displays the direct link to the photo. This link can be used to share the Orkut photos with your friends without the need to login to your Orkut account to access photos.



Please express your opinions through comments. Cheer Up..



Happy Orkut Hacking.