Safer Online Shopping and Practices Presenter: Brian Moats Students Active In Leadership

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Overview We will be discussing online shopping and other safer online practices Why to protect yourself? Who to trust and not to trust? What not to do? Where can you acquire legit free tools to protect you?

The Main Reason to Practice Safer Online Shopping To Protect Your Valuable Information To Protect Your Valuable Information VERY VERY few places will require your Social Security Number If you are asked for it, make sure you never send it in an and on non-trusted websites AVOID POP UPS!!! Don't give credit card information without confirming it is legit and properly protected Read Privacy Policies

Signs of a Protected Website Go to Ebay, Amazon, or some online site you can purchase from In the address bar, you should currently see or something similar Now go to the login in section You should see or something similar HTTPS means “HTTP Secure”

Know Who You're Dealing With Believe it or not, not all websites are safe, secure, and legit. There are many types of people that know how to make a simple website and want to steal your money:

Phishers As it sounds, Phishers (pronounced “Fishers”) send out Spam s or Pop- ups (Bait) in hopes of tricking you into giving them your “valuable information” (Prey)‏ They may use such words as “Free” “Validation” “Update” “Important” “Notice” Too many explicit words

Free Software and File-Sharing An example of this idea is Napster Limewire Kazaa FTTP They offer “free” music, videos, photos, and software... however, is there a hidden cost?

Tools of their Trade These identity thieves and hackers have many tools they can use to take advantage of the internet user All of the following are forms of Spyware Adware Tracking (often in form of “cookies”)‏ Viruses Worms Trogans

Adware Adware is usually a piece of software that gets installed on your computer that cause Pop-ups and other ads to show up on your computer Examples of Adware include: CoolWebSearch Internet Optimizer Zango Gator Often they seem to be search tool bars

s Spammers love to send you If you don't recognize who a is from, then don't open it. If a subject line looks questionable even if from a friend, ask that friend about the before opening it. Never click the links given in s, they may be spam taking you to a “Spoof site” (fake site that looks like the real site)‏

Protective Software There are a number of pieces of software out there that can help protect you from these “Spywares”. Prices range from Free to $200 for home users The Free software is effective, but often has less bonus features that can assist in protecting you

Anti-Virus Software Protect you from many viruses, worms, and trogans. Offer features like spam blocking for A few good anti-virus softwares include: Norton$80** McAfee$80*** AVGFree***** Avast!Free*** Prices based on basic home user version The * represent my personal rating out of 5*s

Spyware Protection Find and delete Spyware, Trogans, Worms, and the other thief tools Some offer real time protection and others you have to run manually Examples: Lavasoft Ad-Aware Free Spybot Free Bit DefenderFree Spyware Doctor$30

Firewalls Also protect you from people trying to hack into your computer Some of the anti-virus softwares come with Firewalls Windows XP and Vista have built in firewalls... A free firewall I have tested and liked a lot is Zone Alarm

Another Practice Do Regularly UPDATES!!! Make sure you download updates for: Operation System (Windows, Mac, Linux, etc)‏ Web Browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, etc)‏ Anti-Virus Spyware Protection Firewall Software Updates

Password Management Passwords selection is something VERY IMPORTANT Passwords grant access to s, computers, and many other places that contain important information

Password Discussion PASSWORD NO-NO'S No Part of your name No Significant Others No Birthdays or Ages No Simple Words No Short Passwords moats21 Password Ok-Ok's 7-12 characters Non-words with #'s ts27ot310lk c01le6e

Backups Do backups of important files Computers will fail or die and files will be lost Good things to use for backing up files: CD/DVD's but make sure you make new copies every few months (buy a good brand too) Thumbs/Flash Drives External or Space Hard Drives NOT FLOPPIES

Find out who to contact when things go wrong Make sure you are ready when something goes wrong You don't have to know exactly who to contact in every situation, but at least teach yourself how to find out quickly Sit down and watch the person who helps you and maybe next time you will know how to help yourself

Links to Some of the Free Software AVG – free.grisoft.com Ad-Aware - Spybot - Zone Alarm -

Questions? Again, this power point will be available at: safershopping Also on this page is a survey