Access to information
and entertainment, goods and
services, credit and financial
services, from every corner of the world is greater than
ever before. Thanks to the
Internet, you can order books, clothes, or appliances
online; reserve a hotel room across the ocean; download
music and games; check your bank balance 24 hours a day;
chat online with friends, or
access your workplace from thousands of miles away.
The flip-side, however, is that the
anonymity of Internet can give
you a false sense of security while
providing online scammers, hackers, and identity
thieves access to your computer, personal information,
finances, and more. Even when you
take precautions to protect your system, there is a chance
it can be hacked and you can become of victim of an Internet
crime. What should you do if this happens? In
all cases you need to take swift action to minimize the
potential damage.
Hacking or Computer Virus...
If your computer gets hacked or infected by a virus:
- Immediately disconnect your
machine from the Internet. Then scan your entire computer
with fully updated anti-virus and anti-spyware software,
and update your firewall.
- If your computer is infected and
you can't get it to recover any other way, you can buy
software to "wipe" - or erase
- the hard drive. You'd then
have to reinstall the operating system, and any other
files you wish to use.
- Take steps to minimize the
chances of another incident.
- Alert the appropriate authorities
by contacting:
- your ISP and the hacker's ISP
(if you can tell what it is). You can usually find an
ISP's email address on its website. Include information
on the incident from your firewall's log file. By
alerting the ISP to the problem on its system, you can
help it prevent similar problems in the future.
- the FBI at
www.ic3.gov.
To fight computer criminals, they need to hear from you.
Internet fraud...
If a scammer takes advantage of you through an Internet
auction, when you're shopping online, or in any other way,
report it to the Federal Trade Commission, at
www.ftc.gov,. The FTC enters
Internet, identity theft, and other fraud-related complaints
into Consumer Sentinel, a secure, online database available
to hundreds of civil and criminal law enforcement agencies
in the U.S. and abroad.
Deceptive Spam...
If you get deceptive spam, including email phishing for your
information, forward it to
spam@uce.gov. Be sure to include the full header of the
email, including all routing information. You also may
report phishing email to
reportphishing@antiphishing.org. The Anti-Phishing
Working Group, a consortium of ISPs, security vendors,
financial institutions and law enforcement agencies, uses
these reports to fight phishing.
You should also forward it to your Internet Service
Provider.
Divulged Personal Information...
If you believe you have mistakenly given your personal
information to a fraudster, file a complaint at
www.ftc.gov, and then visit
the Federal Trade Commission's Identity Theft website at
www.ftc.gov/idtheft to learn
how to minimize your risk of damage from a potential theft
of your identity. You should
contact your credit card provider(s), your bank, and the
three main credit reporting agencies - Equifax:
1-800-525-6285, (www.equifax.com);
Experian: 1-888-397-3742 (www.experian.com);
and TransUnion: 1-800-680-7289 (www.transunion.com).
You may need to close your credit card account(s).