A Geek's Opinion

Thirty five percent of all humans use the internet. The internet is used for many things these days, you can do your banking, communicate with friends overseas and download data in its masses. But unfortunately nothing is pure, nothing is safe and nothing can be trusted. The internet is full of virus, hackers and phishers. Today I will be focusing on phishers. Many people are unaware of Phishers.

Phishers ‘troll’ the internet and certain websites for personal information. They mostly go for things like credit card details or you bank details and do it very cleverly as well. Sending out emails that look identical to the Commonwealth Banks emails. They will asked for access codes and everything personal. Phishers usually use professional enterprises like banks, ISP firms and all other potential sellers.

I believe that people that just buy a computer should consider being taught how to be safe (safe as you can be) online. It doesn’t have to be anything major, just some background research on each threats and how to prevent falling victim to a cyber attack. Especially Phishing, not many people are aware of them or the threats it proposes. Recently a mate and I built a computer for an old lady and I made sure I sat her down and told her of the dangers that the internet holds. Now if she is unsure of certain things she calls me, great. We all need to teach the unfortunate.

One question comes to my mind every time I think of Phishing. Why do they do it? Honestly I can not think of an answer that would support the action of stealing personal information or causing a person stress. But for the sake of this blog post I will try to think of something. If you are talented with computers, like super genius with them and programming you might find this particularly easy, I think. I am not an expert on computer virus creation or web design so I have no idea on how simple it is. But lets just say you are. You punch in a few lines here and there you will be well on your way to gaining your goal, either payment or enjoyment from other peoples stress. If a hacking firm were to pay you BIG money for a simple task, would you do it?

I certainly would not, there is too much at stake. In Australia it is a jail sentence and a massive fine. But that’s just me. I am an Internet angel, I do not download anything illegal or carry out any illegal activities.

Many of us probably have grand parents or know someone elderly that is very uncomfortable with shopping online or giving out anything personal online. Basically not attracting unwanted attention. So should we listen to our elders and not give out personal information online?

I don’t think so, if you educate yourself on these topics (as I mentioned above) you will be safe. That is unless you have a mental breakdown and forget everything geek. But once a geek always a geek.

I have said some solution that I think you could do but what about the companies that are being set-up in these attacks? Companies like the Commonwealth Bank, someone is sending out emails asking for banking details to their customers. Commonwealth Bank has put a hoax enquire email address, any fraud emails must be forwarded to this email address to help stop them from being sent in the first place.

Well there you go, I hope you liked my opinion on Phishing and why I think it is done.