Issue 2.15
If you have not yet had the experience of typing in a web address and suddenly finding your are either at a website you didn’t ask for or you have pop-ups on your screen that won’t go away – be patient. You probably will. This is an old tool of hackers and devious marketers that want to sell you something – usually a program supposedly meant to protect you from the thing they have forced into your computer.
Even though it is an old tool, the trouble-makers are getting more and more ingenious about how they get it into your system. Understand that they make big money by convincing you that your computer is full of viruses or is about to crash or that you have been targeted by the government because you did something wrong and must pay a fine to get your computer capability back.
The ways they get you are numerous, but usually come in just a few categories. The first is through web searches. When you type in a search term in google, yahoo, ask or most other search engines, you get two lists of results. One is determined by the search engine looking for sites that have content similar to the words you asked for. The other is displayed because the site you are about to link to paid for advertising. Usually the search engine company is paid anywhere from a penny or two to a few dollars every time you click on the link and go to the site. The problem with these sites (both kinds) is that they don’t have to be what they say they are. For example, you could put in the name of someone famous hoping to go to their website. If you are not careful, you may end up with a site that attacks the person or simply infects your computer. A few years ago there was a famous virus that spread quickly by telling everyone they could see nude pictures of a famous tennis star just by clicking on the link.
The best way to avoid these traps is to check where you are actually going. When you position your cursor above a link (do not click yet) you will see at the bottom of your browser the actual address that the link points to – not always the same as the address it says you will go to. Some search engines have begun to post the actual link under the title of the search result as well. If it is different than what you expect or if the site does not end in .com, .net, .info, .us, .org etc. you may be in for a surprise, especially if it ends in another countries’ designator. Be especially careful of sites ending in .cn (China), .al (Albania), .cz (Czech Republic) and others that won’t help you if you get scammed. The other way you get trapped that I have seen recently emerging is created by misspelled requests. Companies buy up domain names similar to what you might look for in hopes that you will type it wrong and they can redirect you to their fake site and infect your system. For example I recently typed “pyapal.com” instead of paypal.com and was taken to a site that looked like paypal but wasn’t and I immediately started getting popups telling me my system had multiple viruses and to call a phone number to have it solved. It wouldn’t go away until I used ctrl-alt-del and ended the browser program.
To summarize, always look before you leap when typing or linking from a search engine. You may get something you don’t want so be careful – and remember to always back up anything on your computer that is important to you.
Shaun McCausland has worked in the computer industry for over 33 years, 26 years of it locally with Bits ‘N’ Bytes and Musicomp and currently does in-home and on-site computer consultation, service, training and repair. If you have questions you can reach him at 435-668-7118 or shaun@musicomp.net.