Are you being hacked (and do you know)?

According to McAfee, Americans have lost about $8.5 billion because of internet scams in the last two years alone.  As a result, they've launched an interesting series of videos to educate your Average Joe's and Jane's in what to do and what not to do for safe surfs.

Here's Episode 1 that talks about 419s, Denial of Service attacks and more:

Can't wait for Episodes 2 onwards, as each episode provides a docudrama about how criminals make money through the illegal use of
technology to compromise personal and business data.

The films pick up the personal stories behind cybercrimes - including phishing, bank scraping and
fraudulent emails - and the devastation they cause.

It is strongly recommended that you share this website with non-finance net users, as it educates visitors about online safety and what to do
if you fall victim to an attack.

Similarly, another internet security firm, Sophos, have just posted some useful insights and white papers, which I downloaded.

One had the screaming headline: "One newly infected webpage is discovered every 4.5 seconds."

Oh no!

This particularly relates to SQL infection attacks, with examples of trusted websites such as Business Week, Adobe and Sony being subjected to such attacks and trying to download malware, spyware and scareware.

They are now particularly concerned about social networks and the opportunity for phishing and malware in such networks, as folks are more trusting when they get messages from friends in these networks.

One way this works is to send a link to a video to watch on Slide or similar social apps.  You click and it downloads a codec to play the video ... but it does not.  It's malware it downloads.

Another very recent
example is how Facebook has started sending rubbish links from friends in the past week, saying "click on this" and "look at that"
with links to things like www.junglemix.in, www.kromked.net,
mygener.im, www.151.im, www.121.im and www.123.im.

The aim is to have you clickthrough and the phishers then grab your Facebook username and password.

I know it's phishing, which is why Sophos are now talking about Phacebook, but do your friends know?

If not, be afraid.

Be very afraid.

Mwuh-ha-ha-haaaaah.