Tis' the Season for Online Shopping and Holiday E-Threats

CIO — Every day a new breed of e-threats enters the mainstream and infects thousands of home users, and this is especially true during the high traffic online holiday shopping season. With this in mind, here are some Internet security tips that will help protect consumers.

Holiday shoppers have already seen the usual crop of e-threats — many that we've seen before, such as a worm that spreads through filesharing and spams itself to addresses it harvests from a victim's address books. This worm uses holiday e-mail subject lines such as "Coca Cola is proud to announce our new Christmas promotion." Still others include deceptive — albeit ironic — file names for file-sharers to latch on, like "CleanMyPC Registry Cleaner v6.02.exe". This worm can copy a range of personal information, including the credit card information its unknowing victims type into Web forms.

This is not the only kind of threat online shoppers are exposed to at this time of year — phishing attempts and Christmas-themed scam spam are also highly prevalent. Scammers are riding the wave of good cheer and taking advantage of online shoppers who may not know how to protect themselves. But protecting oneself is simpler than one might think — it just involves being prepared and taking a closer look at your online activity.

Using powerful and effective antivirus software is always an important first step in staying safe. There are many to choose from, and the key is to try to use software that blocks more than just the known viruses. The most effective antivirus programs can find viruses that have not been "fingerprinted" or signed yet, through a combination of technologies from the field of artificial intelligence and educated guesswork.

Backing up an antivirus solution with antispam software should take care of those Nigerian gentlemen wishing to propose deals, as well as those obnoxious Canadian pharmacy spams advertising diet pills. Make sure to choose antivirus software that has a good record of differentiating legitimate emails from spam.

A good anti-phishing solution is also important — not just during the holidays, but throughout the year. An effective anti-phishing solution should be able to tell the difference between the movement of money from your checking account to your credit card account and when a Russian phishers is attempting to access your account. The most effective anti-phishing solutions do not rely on lists of known phishing websites exclusively, instead employing smarter techniques that will notice if the site you are visiting looks a bit too much like your bank's site.

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