We don't use
E-gold very often since most of our online business and
customer sales are conducted through our online merchant
account. However, we occasionally have someone who will
request paying by
E-gold so we keep an account there for this reason. Once a
month or so we withdraw the funds and decided to do so
yesterday. Imagine our dismay when we logged into our E-gold
account yesterday and found our balance to be a big fat ZERO! We had checked the balance just
a few days ago so we knew this was not correct. After
investigating the history of the account, we found that a spend had been made to another e-gold
account user WITHOUT our knowledge or authorization. We had
been hacked!
Since we have up to date anti-virus and firewall software on
our computer, we assumed we were safe. Not so! It seems this
is not enough to keep away the hackers as the software does
not prevent "Spyware" from being installed on your
computer.
"Spyware" is software that gets onto your computer
and literally "spies" on your activities. The spying can range from relatively harmless use of cookies
tracking you across multiple websites... to extremely
dangerous "keystroke loggers" which record
passwords, credit cards, and other personal data. That data then gets relayed to the person who put the software on
your computer.
Spyware gets on your computer in one of several different
ways.
First, it rides along with software you download from the 'Net
and install on your system.
Second, they come as email attachments (much like viruses) and
automatically install themselves on your computer when you
open the email message.
Third, hackers find an open port on your computer and use the
"back door" to install basically anything they want.
And fourth, the more malicious types, like keystroke loggers,
can even get installed by someone with direct physical access
to your computer such as an employer, suspicious spouse,
business competitor, or someone who wants to know exactly what you're doing.
So how do you protect yourself against these malicious
hackers? You need a program that specifically scans your
system for the tens-of-thousands of existing spyware programs
along with the new ones appearing daily.
Below are two programs which specifically check for and remove
spyware from your system:
"Spybot Search & Destroy" - http://www.safer-networking.org
"Ad Aware" - http://www.lavasoft.de/software/adaware/
You may have spyware lurking on your computer right now so
protect yourself today by downloading one of the above
programs!
As a point of reference, we contacted E-gold and informed them
that we had been hacked. We provided them with the account
number of the person who received the funds and asked for a
contact e-mail
address on the person. E-gold informed us that they could not
provide that information without a "court order" and
that basically there was no way of getting the money back!
Take action today to protect yourself from this growing
threat! The bottom line is:
- Keep your anti-virus program current
- Install a firewall
- Carefully screen software before installing it
- Scan specifically for spyware weekly
- Stay current on this growing threat.
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Charles & Susan Truett are full-time Internet Marketers
who successfully built an
online business and now work full-time from the comfort of
their home. Find out their Secrets to Success by subscribing
to "Partners in Success" Ezine. "Each issue packed with marketing
tips, hints, articles, inside information, freebies and
MORE!" Get the highly acclaimed ezine today! To subscribe
visit:
https://www.partnersinsuccess.net/ezine.html
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