Phishing: Examples and its prevention methods.

What is phishing? Phishing is an e-mail fraud method in which the perpetrator sends out legitimate-looking email in an attempt to gather personal and financial information from recipients. Typically, the messages appear to come from well known and trustworthy Web sites. Web sites that are frequently spoofed by phishers include PayPal, eBay, MSN, Yahoo, BestBuy, and America Online. The phisher puts the lure hoping to fool at least a few of the prey that encounter the bait.

PayPal phishing example

In an example PayPal phish, spelling mistakes in the e-mail and the presence of an IP address in the link are both clues that this is a phishing attempt. Another giveaway is the lack of a personal greeting, although the presence of personal details would not be a guarantee of legitimacy.

To avoid getting hooked:

• Don't reply to email o r pop-up messages that ask for personal or financial informatio n, and don't click on links in the message. Don't cut and paste a link from the message into your Web browser — phishers can make l inks look like they go one place, but tha t actually send you to a different site.
• Some scammers s end an email that appears to be from a legiti mate business and ask you to call a phone number to upd ate your account or access a "refund." Because they use Voice over Internet Protocol technology, the area code you call does not reflect wher e the scammers really are. If you need to reach an organizati on you do business with, call the number on your financial state ments or on the back of your credit card.
• Use anti-virus and anti-spyware software, as well as a firewall, and update them all regularly.
• Don't email personal or financial info rmation.
• Review credit card and bank accoun t statements as soon as you receive them to check for unauthorize d charges.
• Be cautious about opening any attachment or downloading any files from emails you receives, regardless of who sent them.

See also

• Anti-phishing software
• DomainKeys
• Computer insecurity
• Defensive computing
• E-mail spoofing
• Pharming
• Rock Phish Kit
• Social engineering
• Vishing

How to safegaurd our personal and financial data?

There are certain steps to safegaurd our personal financial life:

1. Shred old documents. To protect ourselves against potential fraud or identity theft, the best way is to eliminate our own paper trail.

2. Review our monthly statements. Review our monthly statements can alert us to possible fraudulent charges and we may also find legitimate charges for services that are redundant.

3. Get it in writing. Require anyone who solicits us over the phone to first send their information by mail, so we can check its legitimacy.

4. Use a credit card with a small limit when doing mail-order and online purchases. It's all too easy for a dishonest sales clerk to use our credit card information. If the card we used for these purchases has a low credit limit, at least thieves won't be able to pay many bills.

5. Opt ourselves out of all pre-approved credit card offers. Internet is littered with many pre-approved credit offers; all of them could spell disaster in the hands of the unscrupulous.

6. Use certain credit counseling services. For example: http://www.safeguardcredit.org/site/
More anti-online fraud related websites:
Paypal Protection: http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_home-general&nav=0
CyberSource: http://www.cybersource.co.uk/

7. Choose our PIN wisely. It cannot to be something that a thief could easily figure out just by knowing our birth date or any information of us. A combination of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols will offer more security.

8. To be vigilant while using the Internet. Independently verify the validity of any requests for personal information before give out any of our sensitive data.

9. Protect computer's security. Use as many tools as we can (anti-virus software, spyware, firewalls, and passwords) to guard our computer information from nefarious software.

10. Check for anonymous and open proxy IP addresses. IP addresses can be forged to hide the true location of the fraudster. Organized credit card fraud rings often use anonymous Open Proxies to "cover their track". To find out whether the IP logged by particular customer is originating from an open proxy, we can use the tools provided by

http://www.all-nettools.com/

or http://www.openrbl.org/.

If the IP is listed as an open proxy, be extra careful with the order.

The example of an E-Commerce success and its causes-Amazon.com

was launched in 1999, which is an e-commerce best known as the first online retailer of the Internet world. With sales several times that of its competitors, the company has achieved its status as the industry leader by adopting the concept of selling goods via the Internet's World Wide Web.

Amazon.com is presently ruling the Internet business with its best marketing techniques and expertise in relation to the market trends and demands of its customers. It is booming through out the world of e-business with its wide range of books related to a variety of subjects and topics, committing a major source of income as well as also succeeded in marinating brand names.

Amazon.com understands three essential elements to success in e-commerce.

1. Loyalty

Customer loyalty is critical for success and Amazon.com finds over 40% of first time customers will reorder. An even more critical concept is that they are winning the hearts, mind and souls of their customers. Provide a good service and you win not just the book custom but their entertainment spend and soon their commodity spend and maybe later financial services and auto spend.

2. Quality

Quality is essential and anyone who has used the Amazon.com service knows that they can rely on a total customer service package. Amazon.com offers an easy to navigate interface. This design and well as the design of Yahoo proves that great design is worth less than a great offer! Also an important element behind the quality feel of Amazon.com is the email service that informs customers of the progress of an order.

3. Dependability

Dependability is what Amazon.com has invested in and it is what drives Amazon.com ahead of any competition. Too many ecommerce solutions exist today which have tried to succeed without making the investment necessary to provide fast and efficient service.

How Google, Amazon.com and eBay generate their revenues?

Google, Amazon.com and eBay are corporations that well-known of their success of online revenue generation. Let’s take a quick view of their revenue generation model:
Google:

Google is a global technology leader focused on improving the ways people connect with information.

Google generates revenue primarily by delivering relevant, cost-effective online advertising. For the year 2007, Google has generated 16 billion dollars of revenue. It is amazing that 99% of this figure is generated from advertising services given by Google. The balance of 1% is derived from licenses of other products and services such as web search technology and search solutions to enterprises.

Google is adopting an automated online program named AdWords, which enables advertisers to place text-based and display advertisement on its websites. Most of the AdWords customers pay Google on a click-per-click basis. Google has many network members, such as Youtube. 35% of its advertising revenue is derived from its members’ website. For more information, please visit http://investor.google.com/order.html

Amazon.com:

Amazon.com Inc. is an American e-commerce company which is one of the first major companies to sell goods by Internet. Amazon.com started as an online bookstore, but soon diversified to product lines of CD, DVD, mp3, computer software, apparel furniture, toys, etc.

Amazon.com has made revenue of 14 billion dollars for the year 2007. The primary source of revenue is the sale of wide range of products and services to its customers. 55% of the sales derived from North America and the balance are derived from international market. Based on the growth rate of these two primary markets, revenue from international market tends to exceed North America in few years time. For more information, please visit http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=97664&p=irol-reportsAnnual

eBay:

Founded in 1995, eBay Inc. connects hundreds of millions of people around the world every day, empowering them to explore new opportunities and innovate together. eBay Inc. does this by providing the Internet platforms of choice for global commerce, payments and communications.

There are 3 primary business segment operated by eBay currently: Marketplaces, Payments and Communications. The marketplaces provide online transaction platform such as eBay.com, Shopping.com, StubHub, Half.com and Rent.com. The payment segment such as PayPal, enables users to securely, easily and quickly send and receive payments online. Lastly, the communication segment, which consists of Skype, enables VoIP calls and provides low-cost connectivity to mobile telephones.

eBay has generated about 7 billion dollars for the year 2007. 96% of the revenues are generated from transaction. The balance of 4% consists of advertising and other income. Marketplaces have generated greatest revenues for eBay while the communications segment is the least. For more information, please visit http://investor.ebay.com/annuals.cfm.

In conclusion, the main difference of these 3 corporations is the way they generate revenues. Google made their revenues mainly from advertisements, while Amazon.com generated from online retailing and eBay's revenues mainly gained from services provided.

The History and Evolution of E-commerce

The history of electronic commerce, commonly known as e-commerce, is a history of how Information Technology has transformed business processes. This has to date back to the notion of “sell and buy”, electricity, cables, computers, modems, and the Internet.

In the early 1970s, the term ecommerce meant the process of execution of commercial transactions electronically with the help of the leading technologies such as Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) which gave an opportunity for users to exchange business information and do transactions electronically.

The Internet began life as an experiment by U.S. government in 1969. In early 1990s, a great number of business companies in the U.S. represented their services in the World Wide Web such as dot-com, and Internet start-ups. At this time, people began to define the term ecommerce as the process of purchasing of available goods and services over the Internet using secure connections and electronic payment services.
In 1999, during the first generation of E-commerce boom, B2C (Business to Consumer) models have been tried and tested but the newer trends are toward B2B (Business to Business) and Click-and-Mortar models. According to all available data, ecommerce sales continued to grow in the next few years and, by the end of 2007, ecommerce sales accounted for 3.4 percent of total sales.



Undoubtedly, ecommerce is going to shift and change according to the customer advantage. And it has been estimated to have a dramatically growth as the time goes onwards.

The example of an E- Commerce failure and its causes

The Dot-com Flops~

Kozmo.com (1998-2001)
Kozmo.com was a venture-capital-driven online company that promised free one-hour delivery of anything from DVD rentals to Starbucks coffee in the United States. It was founded by young investment bankers Joseph Park and Yong Kang in March 1998 in New York City. Kozmo had a business model that promised to deliver small goods free of charge, typically by using bicycle messengers. The model was criticized by some business analysts, who pointed out that one-hour point-to-point delivery of small objects is extremely expensive and were skeptical that Kozmo could make a profit as long as it refused to charge delivery fees.

While popular with college students and young professionals, the company failed soon after the collapse of the dot-com bubble, laying off its staff of 1,100 employees and shutting down in April 2001. 18 locations nationwide and their Memphis distribution center were liquidated by a veteran entertainment wholesaler from Florida. According to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, in 1999 the company had revenue of $3.5 million, with a resulting net loss of $26.3 million.

The shining example of a good idea gone bad, online store and delivery service Kozmo.com made it on our list of the top 10 tech we miss. For urbanites, Kozmo.com was cool and convenient. You could order a wide variety of products, from movies to snack food, and get them delivered to your door for free within an hour. It was the perfect antidote to a rainy night, but Kozmo learned too late that its primary attraction of free delivery was also its undoing. After expanding to seven cities, it was clear that it cost too much to deliver a DVD and a pack of gum.Though it never had an IPO (one was planned), Kozmo raised about $280 million and even secured a $150 million promotion deal with Starbucks.

Self-introduction-Tze Ming

I am Tze Ming, 20 years old, come from Malacca, single, still available for anyone (except male). I have two sisters, and I am the 2nd child of my parents.

I love sports.
I love to play basketball the most!! I have played for 8 years since form one in secondary school. Although I always sprain my legs and hands while playing basketball, but it still cannot stop me for playing basketball, I love this sport so much!! Unfortunately, all my group members don’t like to play it. Anyone from other groups interested to play with me?? I will very glad to play with you!!
I love to play badminton and ping pong too. I often play badminton, as my group members love this sport so much… For ping pong, never play after started my university life as I feel shy to play at south or north lobby in UTAR, haha…

I love music too. I have learnt “erhu” for 12 years and join Chinese orchestra since secondary school. Compared to western music, Chinese music are more diversified, it contains 50++ different folk culture in China, and many Chinese music instrument can do many sound effects that western instrument can’t. I have joined many performances and I really enjoy them.
I love to western music too. Its sound effect is more harmony compared to Chinese orchestra.
I like Jay Chow the most, I feel he is so talented, and he has the same surname with me, haha…

Same as other guys, i love to play games, sleep and eat also...

I often surf the web. These are the website that I visit frequently:
Google- As it is my homepage…
nba.com- I love basketball and I concern about the NBA news. I can watch highlight of matches here.
Friendster- Watch pretty girl’s photo!!!!
Youtube- Watch funny movie!!
China’s Yahoo sports- As it contains many news of Houston Rocket, a NBA team that I like the most.
p/s: This is the 1st time that i wrote my blog in English....=.=!!

Self-introduction~Shi Ying

I'm Shi Ying. I come from Johor Bahru, Johor and I staying at Scotpine Condominium now. As for my family, I have two sisters and one brother who four year younger than me. My father is a carpenter and my entire house’s furniture is made by him. My mother has been taking care of household. The relationship between my family members are harmony and interdependent.

My hobbies are watching TV programs, reading novels and comics. Actually, I do not like any animal because I scare them will harm me. I think an ideal life is look like no need to work, no need to study and stay at home everyday. I wish that I can fulfill the ideal life but it is prohibited by realistic.

My 3 wishes in this year are I hope my result will be better, I can save my travel fees to Taiwan and learn guitar.

The website I always go through are:
1) www.google.com – The google website is the homepage of my computer, so I will go through it at lease 10 times a day.
2) www.youtube.com – I always watch the entertainment show from there.
3) www.imayday.com – My idol-Mayday’s official website. I can get their latest news from there.
4) www.friendster.com – I can contact with my friend and know their recently condition from there.
5) www.utar.edu.my – This is the official answer.