Seven Ways to Protect Yourself From Cyber Fraud

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Seven Ways to Protect Yourself From Cyber Fraud


According to the head of the Cypriot Financial Crimes Investigation Authority Ioannis Sotiriadis, the amount embezzled by cyber fraudsters to date has exceeded half a million euros. In the past year alone, the agency has handled more than 30 cases of online fraud. Criminals steal personal data and money using fake SMS and emails. 

On September 10, the Limassol police received a statement from a 63-year-old businessman who claimed to be a victim of online fraud, having lost 33,000 euros. In early August, he e-mailed an Italian company with which he had worked for many years, an order for new equipment worth 110,000 euros. In response to the order, he received an e-mail, allegedly from an employee of the company, which contained a request not to transfer money to the bank account, which he usually used to send payments, but to transfer an advance of 33,000 euros to a certain Spanish account. The entrepreneur transferred the deposit to the specified details and asked the company for confirmation, but the supplier soon notified him that he had not received any money, and also that he did not have any accounts in Spain.

Sotiriadis said that his department will request information from Europol and Interpol to find out who owns the same Spanish account. The police are urging the public to be especially careful when making online transactions.

How to protect yourself from cyber fraud?

Don't Open Suspicious Links
One of the ways that scammers and hackers can access your personal information is through suspicious links, images or attachments from unauthorized persons. For example, a letter or message that is not at all typical for your friend, photos that should show you or your loved ones, or an attachment sent by a person with whom you do not communicate.
If the letter arouses suspicion, in no case reply to it, but rather do not open it at all. If it was sent on behalf of a person you know, contact him in a different way and check if he wrote to you exactly. You can also do this when you receive an e-mail from companies, for example, from your bank. Classic "baits" are letters about winning a competition, an incredible prize, or too lucrative commercial offers.

Change passwords regularly
Use only strong passwords and change them often. Your password is the only thing that prevents a potential fraudster from gaining access to information. Avoid using easily guessed passwords such as date of birth or simple numerical order (by the way, 123456 is still the most popular password among Internet users). The second mistake is to use variations of the same password, since knowing one password, it is easy to guess all the others.
A good password consists of upper and lower case letters, numbers, and symbols. Even more secure is two-factor authentication at login. Along with entering the password, you will need to answer the security question or enter the pin code sent to the phone.

Use Verified Sites
Use sites that only contain HTTPS URLs. If you want to buy something online and enter your personal information, make sure that the address bar displays a security icon and that the URL is preceded by the combination HTTPS: //
It should look like this:

Stay tuned for cybercrime news
Stay up to date on current fraud methods. If you know what methods of taking money are happening around you, the likelihood that you will fall on the hook of scammers will be much lower.

Keep personal information confidential
Be especially careful with sites that ask for any financial information, name, address, birthday, social security number, driver's license, and other information that is not related to the services that the site provides. Most sites do not need this information.

Don't settle for remote computer access
It happens that scammers call and introduce themselves as service personnel, offer to update the operating system remotely, conduct a virus scan, speed up the system, and so on. Once they gain access to your computer, the crooks block it and demand that you pay them to unblock it. After you give them your payment details, they will receive all of your personal information and will do whatever they want.

Beware of Unusual Payment Requests
Be wary of any merchant or any website that accepts alternative payment methods (bitcoins or any other cryptocurrency) as such payment methods are not regulated in any way by law. It is highly suspicious to ask you to enter your debit card details before making a purchase.

Complete security software active these antiviruses to safe from cyberfraud.  


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