Fraudsters are out in full force this festive season and are planting cyber-bombs for you to unknowingly let off in your computer. We look at some of the things to watch out for, and what falling for a scam or downloading a virus could do to your credit file.

By Graham Doessel, Founder and CEO of MyCRA Credit Rating Repairs and www.fixmybadcredit.com.au.

According to an article ‘Cybercriminals start spamvertising Xmas themed scams and malware campaigns’ in online tech magazine ZD Net, security researchers from Symantec are warning about a recently intercepted flood of Xmas themed malicious and fraudulent campaigns.

“Over the past year, we’ve seen numerous attempts to entice users into clicking on these links, by impersonating a legitimate message or notification from a respected, trusted and well known brands. These are prone to intensify over the next two months,” ZD Net’s Dancho Danchev writes.

In an example of spamvertising, recently cybercriminals spamvertised millions of emails impersonating the popular e-card service 123greetings.com in an attempt to trick end and corporate users into clicking on client-side exploits and malware serving links, courtesy of the Black Hole web malware exploitation kit.

According to Security experts Sophos, Black Hole malware is marketed and sold to cybercriminals in a typical professional crimeware kit that provides web administration capabilities. But it offers sophisticated techniques to generate malicious code. And it’s very aggressive in its use of server-side polymorphism and heavily obfuscated scripts to evade antivirus detection. The end result is that Blackhole is particularly insidious.

Users are advised to avoid clicking on links found in such messages, and to report them as spam immediately.

Malware—short for ‘malicious software’—is the term often used to refer to any type of malicious code or program that is used for monitoring and collecting your personal information (spyware) or disrupting or damaging your computer (viruses and worms). Some programs (spyware) collect various types of personal information or interfere with control of your computer in other ways, such as installing additional software or redirecting web browser activity.

The purpose of malware can be to obtain personal information for identity theft and login details – especially for banking sites.

If fraudsters get their hands on your personal information, they can steal passwords to your bank or credit accounts and they can also create a patchwork quilt of information that can allow them to eventually have enough on you to request duplicate identity documents, and apply for credit in your name.

Running up credit all over town, perhaps buying and selling goods in your name, or in some cases mortgaging properties – the victim can have a stack of credit defaults against their name by the end of their ordeal – and sometimes no proof it wasn’t them that didn’t initiate the credit in the first place.

Recovery can be slow, and in some cases victims have had no way to prove they weren’t responsible for the debt – with fraudsters leaving no trail and the actual identity theft happening long before the fraud took place.

So to prevent devastating identity theft, which leaves you in debt and can leave your credit file tarnished and without any way of obtaining new credit for years to come, make it your business to educate yourself on internet and or computer risks. And think before you click this Christmas….it could save your financial future.

If you need help to recover your credit file after identity theft – you may be suitable for credit repair. Contact a Credit Repair Advisor at MyCRA Credit Rating Repairs for help 1300 667 218 or visit the main website for more information www.mycra.com.au.

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