Online Scams and Attacks Stay Informed and Protect Yourself

Hi, in this post, we are discussing protecting yourself from online scams and attacks. As you all know, Cybersecurity plays a crucial role in our lives. In day-to-day life, security is essential for every stage of technology. Microsoft introduced many solutions that will help you from those scams and attacks.

Nowadays, we use the Internet all the time, and its use is very high compared to past years, right? As a result, we face many cyberattacks and scams daily, affecting data security and privacy. In these Cyber threats, we must take a significant step that will always protect us from these types of Malware.

Recently, Microsoft announced many significant steps to protect organizations from cyber threats. We must ensure that we have the best security system to protect us from online scams and attacks. Online scams always leak our personal information and affect financial losses.

Protecting yourself from these threats is crucial to maintaining your personal and financial security. In this post, we will provide a quick overview of the types of Online scams and cyberattacks and what measures we can take to protect ourselves from them.

Patch My PC

What is Malware?

Malware is commonly known as a virus. It affects your data and causes identity theft. Many types of malware, such as ransomware, will encrypt files, and you have to pay the attackers to unlock them.

Online Scams and Attacks-Stay Informed and Protect Yourself

Above, we just look at an overview of Online Scams and Attacks, which are crucial to Internet networks. Nowadays, cyber threats are increasing constantly, raising concerns about the safety of users’ data protection day by day. So, in this case, we must be aware of cyber threats and their nature to help us protect ourselves.

  • If you responded to these types of text messages or any kind of technical support service, please don’t respond to this.
  • This will be a big scam.
  • If you respond to that, they will access all your details.
  • So, let’s discuss some common cyber threats
NoCommon Cyberattacks
1Phishing Scams
2Malware
3 Technical Support Scam
Online Scams and Attacks-Stay Informed and Protect Yourself-Table.1
Online Scams and Attacks-Stay Informed and Protect Yourself-Fig.1 Creds to MS
Online Scams and Attacks-Stay Informed and Protect Yourself-Fig.1 Creds to MS

Phishing Attacks

Phishing attacks are very common and crucial, so we must take the best steps to protect our data. In these attacks, attackers commonly act like trusted people, who have to convince us to click on a link, file, or share our data.

  • We can’t predict where we can get Phishing Attacks.
  • It happens most commonly through emails and messages, and social media platforms are one reason that we get attacked.
What are the Common Attacking PatternsInfo
Act as a Trusted SenderThe attack message looks like it’s from someone you trust, such as your bank, government, or a well-known service like Netflix or Amazon. So we easily respond to them.
Urgent RequestIn this method, attackers send messages that are informing you of an Urgent requests like Something is going to be cancelled, or you have to pay some penalty.
A link or attachment
It providing a fake website or an attachment.
Online Scams and Attacks-Stay Informed and Protect Yourself-Table.2

When using a browser, you must ensure that you are turned on the Microsoft Defender SmartScreen in your browser. When using an Edge browser, click the settings option and select the Privacy Search and Service option. Under the security, Turn on the Microsoft Defender SmartScreen.

See More: Turn On or Off Microsoft Defender SmartScreen for Microsoft Edge in Windows 11

Online Scams and Attacks-Stay Informed and Protect Yourself-Fig.2
Online Scams and Attacks-Stay Informed and Protect Yourself-Fig.2

The screenshot below is from our post, New Entra Phishing-Resistant Passwordless Authentication. In this post, Microsoft recommends users move to phishing-resistant passwordless authentication solutions. To learn more, please click on the link below.

See More: New Entra Phishing Resistant Passwordless Authentication | Zero-Trust Security Strategy | Explicit Verification

Online Scams and Attacks-Stay Informed and Protect Yourself-Fig.3
Online Scams and Attacks-Stay Informed and Protect Yourself-Fig.3

Malware

Like Phishing, this malware has been very common for many years. It is also known as viruses, and we all know about them. Among all cyber threats, there are many common ones, such as the fact that they all affect your personal data and identity theft. Also, our system got hacked.

  • There are many ways malware can affect your system, most commonly by opening a harmful file or link that a user opens or if you are installing an application that will attack you.
  • These attacks are commonly called as “Trojan Horse”.

How to Prevent Malware

First, if you get any update messages while working on your browser, please don’t open the message or update directly through the message. First, you have to check your browser update. To do so, go to your browse settings by clicking on the 3 dot menu. Check the About option on your browser settings page, and this will give you the exact updated information.

  • Please be aware that the links and files are never trusted. So be careful when installing apps. If you want to install any apps, please install them from a trusted source.
  • Always stay updated with your browser and operating systems. These will always be a better option for preventing Malware.
  • Use antimalware in our operating system, like Microsoft Defender Antivirus.
Online Scams and Attacks-Stay Informed and Protect Yourself-Fig.4
Online Scams and Attacks-Stay Informed and Protect Yourself-Fig.4

 Technical Support Scam

The online scams next movements like a  Technical Support Scam. This is crucial for every user, and they take these tricks from attackers. In this case, Scammers act like technical agents and send us warning messages like the below( screenshots). When we click on these warning messages, the attackers access our data.

  • In this case, you must understand some information, like Tech companies don’t contact you directly.
  • Tech companies never ask you to call them, and they do send you these types of warning messages. (below in the screenshot).
  • These basic details are enough to prevent you from a  Technical Support Scam.
Online Scams and Attacks-Stay Informed and Protect Yourself-Fig.5
Online Scams and Attacks-Stay Informed and Protect Yourself-Fig.5

More About

Here, we discussed a small overview of how to protect ourselves from online scams. We can use many standard methods for every attack, such as staying up to date with your browser and operating system. I always prefer the 2-factor authentication method( use a strong password).

  • Also, you can use unique passwords.
  • We have many other posts on securing from cyber threats. You can also follow them for more details.

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Author

Anoop C Nair has been Microsoft MVP from 2015 onwards for ten consecutive years! He is a Workplace Solution Architect with more than 22+ years of experience in Workplace technologies. He is also a Blogger, Speaker, and Local User Group Community leader. His primary focus is on Device Management technologies like SCCM and Intune. He writes about technologies like Intune, SCCM, Windows, Cloud PC, Windows, Entra, Microsoft Security, Career, etc.

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