What is Phishing?

Made by Marco Joson

Phishing is a method scammers use to grab hold of your personal information. Usually they’ll send some sort of email or text message posing as someone/something important. Their end goal is to obtain information like passwords, social security numbers, bank information, etc. The scammers best method is by trying to get you to click on a certain link sent via email or text with a message saying things like; “There’s something wrong with your account” or, “You’ve been eligible for…” Scammers send these all over the world daily so you need to constantly be on the lookout for these scams.

How to look out for Phishing?

Made by Marco Joson

Like said above, phishing scammers try to pose as a company that you trust. They’re most likely to pose as a bank, online store, or a credit card company. It’s really hard to tell if the email belongs to a scammer or not. Like for example, the image on the left looks like an official bank email when it is rather a scam. Unless you can tell whether a message is real or a scam, you and the average person most likely wouldn’t notice at first.

Tips and Tricks to Help Combat Phishing

Made by Marco Joson

There’s a couple of ways to prevent phishing scams. One of them is to check if you know the company or if you have a relationship with it. Downloading security software and protecting your accounts with multi-factor authentication will help greatly as it creates more roadblocks for the scammer to get past. Always back your data in case a scammer got access to your private information. Backing up your data allows you to always keep an extra copy of all of your data, storage, and cloud storage.

What is Malware?

Made by Holden Zambon

Malware is a type of software that is written to harm the computer it is downloaded on. This can be for multiple reasons; some malware are made to steal data such as credit card information or confidential information that the computer stores, to spy on a computer, to generate ads directly on a computer screen or software, or to slow it down/make the computer no longer functional. Software is generally made to help the computer run, while malware is made to harm the computer that it was downloaded on. When downloading software, you should be careful to make sure that it is not malware in disguise.

What are viruses and what is the difference between viruses and malware?

Made by Holden Zambon

Viruses are a type of malware that are usually made to hide themself and copy itself to spread to other devices. Viruses can do a wide variety of things when on a computer, such as deleting files and damaging your hard disk, and advanced ones can even send themself through your email to other people or spam your email with ads. Very advanced viruses can constantly adapt and modify their code to avoid detection. This makes viruses very harmful to your computer. Viruses and malware are commonly confused because malware is often dubbed as viruses when it technically isn't, making the line between malware and viruses often confusing. Antivirus programs are actually antimalware programs but have been dubbed antivirus because the first antivirus program called itself that.

How to detect malware and viruses to stay safe

Made by Holden Zambon

There are many types of malware such as viruses, worms, trojans, ransomware, adware, and spyware. File viruses are the most common and usually come in “.exe”, “.vbs” or “.com” files. Not all “.exe”, “.vbs”, or “.com” files are bad though, so it's recommended that you scan the file using an antivirus program and make sure they come from a trusted source. Worms destroy your computer and send itself to other computers through your email or other similar methods and trojans will take remote control of the user’ s computer and network, but have to be executed manually to work. Ransomware will take your data and try to sell it back to you, adware redirects the user to pages filled with ads or puts ads on their screen, and spyware can use the camera of a user or record the screen of the user to spy on them.