Social Network Scam

The Social network LinkedIn is being used by online fraudsters, BitDefender Antivirus experts warned today.

BitDefender stated that LinkedIn users are receiving emails requesting invitations to be added to other users’ social networks.

Users are more inclined to believe these emails as they come through official channels.

The scammers are using fake profiles on LinkedIn. When connection is made, fraudsters try to get LinkedIn users to articipate in advanced fee fund scam commonly known as the Nigerian 419 fraud.

The Nigerian 419 Fraud (Wikipedia):

The 419 scam originated in the early 1980s as the oil-based economy of Nigeria declined. Several unemployed university students first used this scam as a means of manipulating business visitors interested in shady deals in the Nigerian oil sector before targeting businessmen in the west, and later the wider population. Scammers in the early-to-mid 1990s targeted companies, sending scam messages via letter, fax, or Telex.

The spread of email and easy access to email-harvesting software made the cost of sending scam letters through the Internet inexpensive. In the 2000s, the 419 scam has spurred imitations from other locations in Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe.

Bogdan Dumitru, chief technology officer at BitDefender said: “This new twist to the old 419 scheme is more dangerous as there is an increased chance for network users to fall for the scam since they use it to build up their businesses or careers and thus tend to grant it some implicit trust.”

Dumitru noted that many sites, such as LinkedIn, are not able to verify the identity of those who join.

BitDefender also claimed that other social networking sites are likely to be used by fraudsters for similar scams.

Until next time

Malcolm - Your Bitdefender Guide

BitDefender Total Security 2008 - New Features

Total Security 2008 includes several interesting new features. I have already mentioned the new Gamer Mode. Added functionality are also Anti-phishing, Wi-Fi management and more.

The Wifi security is great for all of us that have tried to secure our laptop in the home network. Going through Windows security settings for Wifi can make anyone want to sell the computer and start putting Ikea funiture together instead.

The New Total Security Features are:
Read more

BitDefender 2008 Released

New BitDefender version 2008 has just been released.

The new upgrade boasts several interesting new features. One is the new “Gamer Mode”. The problem with most Antivirus software is that they take up a lot of system resources.

This can be a problem if you want to play the latest and the greatest games as you will often need the full potential of your computer. This is where Gamer Mode comes into play. You can set your computer to be protected but use very little computer resources.

Go here to read more about BitDefender 2008 AntiVirus.

Until Next time,

Malcolm - Your Bitdefender Guide

Bitdefender AntiSpam Review

For a few weeks I have tested and evaluated the Bitdefender AntiSpam function in Bitdefender Plus 10.2.

I actually turned this function off in version 8 because it made all my windows in outlook to close every time I used it. As I use Outlook as an organizer for a lot of documents this was quite frustrating and I have now used the Windows spamfilter for two years.

I finally decided to give Bitdefender another try and boy am I glad I did.

The annoying “closing my outlook folder” error is gone and instead there is a simple but efficient email filter.

As I get both a lot of business emails and a lot of spam and the business emails sometimes are filtered into the spam folder it is very important that the “false negative” is very small.

With false negative I mean the emails that I want (not spam) are filtered into the spam folder. This makes me miss them or I have to spend considerable time going through the junk to find the emails I actually should respond to.

Anyway the Bitdefender antispam function is working really good and now about two weeks into using it I don’t think one single email has been marked as spam wrongfully.

Impressive!

You can read more about bitdefender plus here

Until next time

Peter - Your Bitdefender Guide