3 Tips to Spot a Phony Phishing Website on the Internet

Internet

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Phishing is a criminal activity where scammers use the Internet to fraudulently lure people to reveal personal identity data and financial information. Scammers often send emails with links to fraudulent websites in an attempt to steal financial data. Here are three tips to spot a phony phishing website on the Internet.

  1. Check  URL

A URL is the address for a website. Phishing scammers often misspell common words in a URL that appears legitimate to navigate users to a fraudulent webpage. For example, the url https://www.bankofamerica.com is a legitimate website. A scammer may eliminate the “i” in America and unsuspecting users may click on a link received in an email without noticing the missing letter.

2.  Check if “https://” is in the Address Bar

Banking and financial transaction websites use the secure encrypted “https://” instead of the unsecure “http://”. Phishing scams that direct people to phony websites on the Internet are often not encrypted and use “http” instead of “https.”

3.  Check for Valid SSL Certificate

To verify if a website has a valid secure socket layer (SSL) certificate, in most web browsers you can right click on the webpage, click on properties or view page info, click on security if needed, then click on view certificates. Some banking websites may contain a lock icon at the bottom right of the page. You can verify that the icon is valid by clicking on it which will direct you to the security page. Phony websites often have fake lock icons that shows no information when you point your mouse on the icon or click on it.

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The Internet leads to Access to Your Finances

The development of the internet has lead to a greater availability of information for all that have access to it. Only ten or fifteen years ago most contact needed to be made in person, on the telephone or through mail. The fax machine was also available but was limited, generally to businesses.

To find information such as a personal credit report took days or more to get back. Today, something like a credit report can be retrieved for free on the internet. Even today a credit report requested on the internet can give you immediate information while a request via phone or mail will take fifteen days.

To get your free credit report simple go to www.annualcreditreport.com. At that site, first select your state and push the button “request report”. Follow the instructions and within a short time after verification of your identity you will be able to view your credit report.

This is only one example of the accessibility of information because of the internet. In addition banking has never been more accessible. Not only checking balances and making transfers but also paying bills directly from your account. Even taxes can be done online, with a much shorter wait for your refund, if one is available to you. To file your taxes online all one needs to do is visit the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) website and look for the link to free filing. Without the internet most of the transactions listed here will take a day to months to have competed. The availability of the internet has changed that.

Making Money On The Internet

There are a number of ways to make money on the internet and you don’t even have to own a server to do it. Many people dream of working from home and many people actually do it. The internet has made it a reasonable choice to at least make extra money right from your own home. Here is a list of possible ways you too could do this.

  1. Writing: There are all sorts of websites and content needed to add to the internet. There are companies that you can work with that provide this content to other companies and individual websites that are looking to continuously add to the information they provide. In addition to online writing there are many publications looking to hire writers and all you have to do is get out and market your skills.
  2. Store front: It is fairly easy to set up a store front website and start to sell whatever it is that you do on the internet. Are you a jewelry maker or do you make birdhouses. There are markets waiting for you to sell whatever you do. In order to get started you may first organize your business from home and then get it set up on the internet.
  3. You can also make money from advertisers on the internet. If you start a website and start generating traffic you may add advertisements to your website. Many advertisers will give you a certain amount of money for every hit that you generate. Although this only makes a small amount of money, fractions of a cent, it can add up if you generate a large amount of traffic on your website.

There are many ways to generate income online. Find something you like and market it, it can be easy and enjoyable.

The Internet, Getting Connected

These days, for most people there are a number of options for connecting to the internet. The cost for this varies and so does the speed, but depending on what you want to use your internet connection for you may not need to have all the speed in the world. So how do I get connected to the internet and what connection type should I use.

First of all if you have an older computer with a slower processor, it may be that a super fast internet connection is wasted on the computer that you have. In other words, don’t get a cable connection if your computer isn’t going to get any benefit from having it.

There are a number of options and even within those options there are different prices for different speeds of connections. So first, you obviously need a computer. Your computer should have a phone port and/or a network cable port. Next you need service. So, there are some connections that still offer service through a telephone connection but these are incredibly slow, so most likely you will use one of the other type connections.

A DSL connection often offered along with your phone service by your phone company offers a faster service. This service is often packaged along with your phone service and rates are charged on a per month basis. A DSL connection is fast enough for most people for most things but if you plan to watch TV or other large video files you may want a faster connection speed.

Cable companies also offer internet connection along with satellite TV connections. The cable company connections are usually the fastest available. For a home network with multiple users and a variety of media being transmitted makes the cable connection enticing. Whatever you choose be sure to find antivirus software to install as well.

The Internet has Changed Everything

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The Internet has made an indelible impact on the world we now live in. Where at one point you had to research things by going to a library, you can now simply go to a search engine and look up any topic that you want to know more about. Whether in our personal lives or in business, the fact is that the Internet has given us all a very large box of tools that we can use to advance any cause we choose to put our energy into.

Business has been especially advanced by the presence and power of the Internet. A business owner can use free online surveys to figure out what her customers really want, for instance. And through a simple search, that same business owner can figure out what sorts of words and phrases they should be using if they want to attract more customers to their website. Also, simply knowing what not to do can be very helpful to a business owner as they can make changes a lot quicker. Also, any business can reach literally hundreds of millions of people through the use of social networking websites. They can niche down their offerings to a specific type of person who is highly likely to buy, and still have a large pool of people that they can reach.

Of course, business is not the only part of human life that has been positively affected by the existence and prevalence of the Internet. Consider the realm of online music downloading and the frequency with which people do so. But when you can find nearly any kinds of audio and video you want on sites like YouTube and Hulu, who needs to download anything at all? One day, we may go back to not needing hard drives, because everything may be online.

Attracting Customers Online

Getting better known online is a matter of getting your brand name known and getting links to your website. The more links you have, the better your website’s search engine ranking will be. Every Web business is determined to get great rankings, making them increasingly determined to get more links. This makes it important for your business to attract those links with content that is as interesting or informative as possible. The best ways to do that has changed over time as new and effective online marketing trends become clear. One of the ways that companies are creating their own high-powered marketing is to create their own Internet radio content.

DrJays is a website that has long used an Internet radio show to build an online audience. The site uses a radio show hosted by a journalist named Boss Lady to keep customers coming back again and again for new shows. Boss Lady interviews the hottest artists in the hip hop world, appealing to the same fan base that buys the clothing sold by Dr. Jays. Keeping the subject matter close to the item being sold, in the case of Dr. Jays,is the key to getting the right demographic to listen to the show and get interested in the products. A hip hop radio show attracts the demographic that also is interested in Dr. Jays clothing line. Internet radio can be used by websites of every type in order to create a loyal following and to spread the word about what the site sells.

To keep the customers coming back, there are other techniques that website owners can employ. Keeping a topical blog is a way of getting regular readers. Because it is frequently updated, just like an Internet radio show, it encourages repeat visitors. With repeat visitors comes waves of returning customers and an expanded branding that keeping expanding across the Internet to find new buyers.