| Popular Meds |
| WEIGHT LOSS |
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| SWINE FLU |
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| Pain Relief |
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| Muscle Relaxers |
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| Anti-Anxiety |
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| Anti-Depressants |
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| Stop Smoking |
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| Antibiotics |
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| Birth Control Pills |
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| Sexual Health |
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| Men's Health |
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| Women's Health |
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| Skin Care |
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| Credit Card Fraud |
We have seen a rise in credit card charges appearing on your and our own statements for things we've never authorized. Those charges are for anything from telephone service to airline tickets. It is something that has been bothering us as to how this is happening and I think we're finally on to something.
There are several security issues you must be aware of that are more blatant than what I think the underlying reason for the frauds are. Those blatant examples are as follows:
- Ordering from websites which do not use secure servers on their order forms. When you go to the page where you input your credit card number, you should see https in the address bar and you should see a small icon in the bottom of your browser that looks like a lock.
A perfect example of websites that do not use encrypted order pages, (no https), are www.improved-generic.com and www.365pharm.com. You can see more mirror websites of theirs here.
A perfect example of websites that do use encrypted order pages, are like this one from www.ladiesrx.com, where you will notice when you click that the URL begins with https and you will see the lock on the bottom of the browser.
- Ordering from telemarketers. There is a huge increase in the number of people who are taking telemarketing calls as legitimate. Often, they will use the names of legitimate pharmacies when they call, but not always. Never, for any reason, should you give a telemarketer an order. Not even if they say they are from the same website you just bought from and have your actual order number. There are reasons why you should not do this we go into below but never, never order by phone for any reason. Do not order by phone and you will prevent many potential problems!
If they claim to have your prior order information, and want you to refill, do not do it. They may have purchased your information from a variety of sources we go into below and may have a prior order of yours, but they will usually need you to verify or confirm the order with your credit card. They may even have the last-4 digits of your credit card but that means nothing. Never give anyone who calls your credit card number or CVV code.
- Confirming COD orders. There are a lot of telemarketers today who will call and say they are confirming a COD you placed. They will tell you who to make the COD out to. More and more they are using this ploy because they see a rise in the use of COD's to order and take a shot when they call that you too placed a COD order that they can fool you into thinking it was with them. Never take a telemarketer's word for it. Always confirm in writing with the website where you purchased.
How is it that your information is leaked out there on the web to telemarketers and others who make unauthorized charges? Something I've suspected for awhile and confirmed for myself recently.
Personally, I use a wide array of software to seek out and find any malware, adware, spyware, trojans, or other viruses on my pc's. I update and scan them daily, sometimes more often if I'm entering sensitive data. I was surprized to find a keystroke logger on my computer recently which got me thinking about the rise of fraud complaints.
I know how to order online. I know how to find legitimate websites. I know how to avoid places where trojans and viruses may lurk and I don't open email with attachments from people I don't know. Even then, I know how to verify if the attachment is legit or not.
So how did I get a keystroke logger on my computer? By the way, what that does is record the things I type into my keyboard and send them back to the author of the trojan.
I started searching google and it did not take long to come up with the reason.
November 11, 2007, an article on www.wired.com says, "Hackers Use Banner Ads on Major Sites to Hijack Your PC", "The malware-spiked ads have been spotted on various legitimate websites, ranging from the British magazine The Economist to baseball's MLB.com to the Canada.com news portal....The distributor of the malware-infected ads is believed to be AdTraff, an online-marketing company with reported ties to the Russian Business Network, a secretive internet service provider that, security firms say, hosts some of the internet's most egregious scams."
June 9, 2008 an article at www.vnunet.com says, "Hackers 'seeding' legitimate websites". The article says in part, "The techniques allow hackers to quickly 'colonise' thousands of legitimate sites, from big brand sites like Wal-Mart, to smaller but equally legitimate sites, said Mary Landesman, senior security researcher at ScanSafe....We have been saying this for some time but it bears repeating in light of this astronomical increase. Currently, thousands of legitimate sites are being compromised daily."
July 30, 2008, an article in pcmag.co.uk headlines, "Hackers infiltrate legitimate websites" and states in part, "Surfers who think they can avoid cyber-crime by sticking to reputable websites are fooling themselves. Sixty of the 100 most popular websites have hosted malware of various kinds at some time in the past six months, according to a recent study. The latest State of the Internet Report from Websense warns that many popular social networking, search engine and web 2.0 sites have suffered temporary infection with cyber-tricks such as data-stealing code and hidden redirects.".
August 6, 2008, an article at a webhosting site, devshed.com, warns readers "Malware Attacks Growing at Popular Websites" and sites this study, "Do you think web-based malware occurs only on illegal websites? A security report titled " A Comparative Look at the State of Web Security" presented some key figures that raise serious concerns. Hackers had been able to infiltrate various sizes of legitimate websites,...One such legitimate website was nature.com. The website is one of the top 500 most-trafficked websites with over 700,000 unique visitors each month....The malicious scripts consisted of password-stealing Trojans found on visitors' computers...in just one day when the website was compromised, 30,000 users could have been exposed to these malware threats ".
November 28, 2008 from computerweekly.com, "Hidden code threatens web users" and says in part, "Code hidden in legitimate websites is now the weapon of choice being used by cybercriminals to pass on malware to unsuspecting users, says security firm Finjan. [They said of] US media company CBS that one of its online pages has been compromised in this way. The attack on the CBS website highlights that no website can be totally secure against a system hack and consequent infection of visitors' PCs, said Ben-Itzhak.".
December 15, 2008 also from computerweekly.com, and you'll appreciate this headline: "All Internet Explorer users could be at risk, warns Microsoft" The article says, "An unpatched security hole in Internet Explorer that is being exploited by hackers potentially affects all versions of the browser, Microsoft says. The company recommends setting the internet zone security setting on browsers to "high", and using access control lists to counter the malware.". To get a copy of the new Microsoft patch, click here.
This is just a few articles from the past year that expose something that has been going on with greater and greater frequency. No longer can you simply point to a pharmacy where you placed an order, especially one which uses encryption over a secure server to deliver your order info, and say, "they are the ones who stole my info!". Not after reading these articles anyway.
Here are some programs I use that are free and very effective. The first is called Malwarebytes. Just go to their website, click here and download Malwarebytes and also RogueRemover. If you can't get to that website or you can't download the program or you can't install the programs, you probably are already infected. If such is the case, write me and I'll get you going in the right direction.
Another I use in conjunction is Spybot. Click here. This one is a bit more involved when you install it but a very good program for finding and removing threats.
With any software like this, you have to run it often and make sure you always update it. Keep the most current version by checking for updates. Keep your browser up to date also by going to windows for their updates frequently. And it's always a good idea to scan your computer with these programs before you go buy something with your credit card online.
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