iTunes under phishing attacks
By Greg George
CEO
Spinal Cord Resources Network
Mailboxes have started to fill up with requests to go to a website and verify your iTunes account which has been under attack. According to the email, there have been too many attempts to access the account and that you will be highly restricted until you type in your iTunes login and password along with a credit card number and your mother’s maiden name. This should be an old tune for those used to watching hackers try to get personal information by using social engineering. Social Engineering is a person trying to gain access to something by pretending they know someone or something and want to give you something for it. In this case the hackers want to give you full access to your iTunes account back in return for personal data typed into a web page. If you get one of these emails you should mark it as spam and make sure it is deleted. Do not click on it if you are running Windows are Internet Explorer as the site may also include damaging content that allows hackers immediate control over your computer.
This is a good time to download and use Firefox to protect you fr0om these kinds of attacks. Firefox looks at the displayed URL vs. what is behind the link to make sure they are the same. Invariably they are different in a hacking attack and Firefox can warn you that you are going to a hacker site. There are also sites that are well known as hacking sites which are checked against by Firefox and you are informed if you try to go to one of those sites. These technologies protect your personal data as well as your computer. Many times hacking sites have damaging code written for Internet Explorer that gains administrator access without any display to the user. Firefox has taken a very important eye toward security which makes it harder to attack it and gain access. Plus, since the source code is free for anyone to look over, there are fewer chances of bad security code being left in the finished product.
Also make sure that your anti virus, anti spyware, and anti malware packages are up to date. There are many ways to break into a Windows computer and the only way to at least be warned is to run these programs. They take memory and CPU speed from your computer, but that is the reward for running Windows. This is also a good time to make sure the latest updates and patches are applied to your computer. There is no reason to be running an old version of Windows that is wide open to many kinds of attacks. Many popular viruses and malware capitalize on people not keeping their computer up to date. Once hackers are in your computer they can use your computer as a download site for illegal software and pornography. Some of this material can get you thrown in federal prison for years even if you had no idea what was going on in your computer. It is not worth jail time to not keep your computer as secure as possible.
Closing up always verify the link on the screen is really where it will go. If you put your cursor over a link the real location will appear at the bottom of the window. If that is not the company URL you were expecting then you are under a phishing attack. This is an easy thing to avoid and it can save your credit cards as well as other logins from being compromised. Hackers would love to gain access to your EBay account or PayPal account. They can purchase things with no questions asked while you try to figure out what was going on.
