Many are afraid of being cheated online – Eskilstuna Courier

Sweden

A quarter of Swedes worried about becoming cheated online. Fraud through fake emails and social media are common approaches.

Many Swedes are worried about being subjected to cyber-fraud. It appears from a survey Ipsos conducted on behalf of the IT security Sentor.

One quarter of the respondents said that they are afraid that someone will trick them into divulging sensitive information. Concern is greatest among young people aged 16-29 years, where 38 percent are worried about being ripped to disclose sensitive information.

Anders Söderström, CEO of Sentor. He says that the company can see in their monitoring service to the number of scam emails is increasing.

– It appears that fraudsters have become better at tricking recipients. Today it is much more difficult to distinguish a fake email from a legitimate email. The danger is not only that the recipient can be tricked into clicking on a link and enter their user or credit card information. Today we see more and more attempts to infect the recipient’s computer with a blackmail virus, which the victim has to pay to get access to their files that the virus has encrypted.

According Sentor it becomes even more common scams via social media. It may for example be about Facebook Fraudsters gained control of someone’s account and then claimed to be a friend or relative who needs help to carry out a transaction.

In Sentors survey, 29 percent of respondents said they have suspected that a person claimed to be someone else to gain access to the information they provide.

Thomas Wahlstedt marketing at Sentor. He offers tips on some things you can do to avoid being hit.

– Be restrictive about giving out personal information over e-mail and phone unless you are absolutely sure that you are communicating with the right person. It is common for people contacts and pretend to be from a specific company or authority. If in doubt you should contact the organization, for example, to hear if they actually sent out an email.

He also recommended that they should update their software to the latest version.

– Attackers find current security holes in software. Suppliers trying to plug these security holes on updates of the software and it is important to frequently install these updates. Many software can be configured to be automatically updated whenever there are updates.

Another way to protect yourself is to choose strong passwords and be sure to have a unique password for each service.

– For key accounts, it is also recommended to use two-factor authentication, that is, for example, when logging will receive a code to his mobile phone which you must enter.

Thomas Wahlstedt discourages even from clicking links and attachments.

– Be restrictive which links and files you click on as many viruses spread in this way. Often you can move the mouse pointer over a link without clicking, to see exactly where the link leads. Is not that a URL that really are connected with the sender should not click on the link.