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| Image: Nayarit.gob.mx |
With this article, which we close the Citizen Security week, we focus on this type of crime in which some countries in Asia and Africa (Nigeria specifically) are hotbeds of some cases of scammers, who focus on people with little computer knowledge, to obtain information or money, in some cases children are encouraged to use their parents' credit cards. Many of these cases are called the "Nigerian scam."
These are some of the most common cases of scams that move around the Internet:
This type of scam is commonly seen on many Internet sites as advertising, and has caused damages of several million dollars. It is mainly focused on Latin America.
IT WORKS LIKE THIS: After making you call a telephone number, where NLP experts excite you with the idea of a trip, without giving you time to hesitate, they ask you for a card number as a “requirement” assuring you not to charge anything. After having the credit card number, they ask you if you have an American visa, if you say no, they say thank you for participating but that the prize does not apply to you, if you say that you do have an American visa, they will ask you for the number and that they will contact you later, which never happens, however, they have already charged an amount X on your card. There are many variables of this scam such as “the lottery scam”, “the uncle from America”, compensation among others.
Scam involving purchases on unencrypted pages without security certificates (HTPPS). It usually starts with an email (in which they promote items at fantastic prices), from that email they redirect you to another website (from where the purchase must be made) but when you go to pay, they ask you to enter your credit card on an insecure page, that is, on an http page and not an https page.
Bank frauds They have become popular in Latin America, and some banks have already taken measures to counter them. Considering that in Latin America, more than 50% of bank users have access to the bank's Internet portal from which transactions, card payments, etc. are made, what the scammers are looking for is that information in order to get money from you or pay for services with other people's money.
What they do is an EXACT copy of the site, when the user enters their username and password, the screen shows them that the site is under maintenance, but what they really did was save the user's information and almost immediately they will be trying to empty your accounts.
How can we identify these copies of online banking portals? It's very simple, usually the domain of the page will be different. For example, if the bank's address is www.banco.com the address of the scammer's site may be something like: http://www.banco.com.ahivamos.org
If you notice this, do not enter your information, but verify that only the exact domain of the bank is there, without any other strange words. If you have doubts that you are really on the bank's website, you can click on the lock next to the address, and it will have the digital certificate data. If you see anything abnormal, report that address immediately to your bank.
- Don't enter your credit card numbers on too many sites. The more sites that have your information, the more likely it is to fall into the wrong hands.
- A good idea to help with the previous point is to use Paypal to make your payments, this system is very secure.
- Never send money to someone you don't know in person. There are scammers of both sexes who make people fall in love online, then fake an accident and have someone contact them to tell them that they are in a serious condition and need money sent to pay the hospital bill.
- If you are looking to purchase from a site that is new to you, do some more research on the site, and if you are still skeptical, don't purchase from there.
- Don't use the same password for everything, if for some reason you lose your Facebook account for example, and it turns out to be the same one you use for Paypal, you will be in trouble.
- Change your password to a more complicated one. It is recommended that you use CAPITAL letters combined with numbers and a special symbol, e.g. the @ sign.
- Never enter confidential information (credit card numbers, bank account logins, etc.) into a cybercriminal's computer. They may use a program to record everything you type on your keyboard.
- If a product is offered to you that is too cheap to be true, it is most likely a scam.
Remember to always be alert.
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