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Welcome to this week's edition of the Computer Kindergarten Newsletter.
Today is Sunday, December 3, 2006
In this Issue:
Special Feature: Phone Phishing
Tips & Tricks: The End Key
This Week's Topic: Available Disk Space
Question: Microsoft Word – Changing Paper Size
Websites of Interest: Pearl Harbor Day; Conversion Calculator; Drug Digest Drug Interactions
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Special Feature: Phone Phishing
The following is from worldstart.com (used with permission).
There’s a new type of phishing scam on the horizon. It's one that mixes the traditional methods, such as sending bogus e-mails, with social engineering techniques. Don’t let it catch you off guard!
As you probably know by now, the term phishing refers to an attempt to gain personal information from end users by spoofing legitimate companies and financial institutions such as PayPal or Ebay. In order to do this, an attacker sends a message (usually an e-mail) stating there is some sort of serious issue with your account and in order to take care of it, you need to log in with your account information at their site, which is of course, fake.
Once this is done, the attackers have the information they want, which puts the ball squarely in their court. This has been a very successful avenue for attackers in the past. They have been able to harvest various user's personal information with ease. Lately however, the public is getting a little wiser to these sorts of attacks and we aren't so easily fooled anymore.
Well, the one thing about hackers is that they are resilient. You stop one method and they shortly figure out another. Well, the new method appears to be a hybrid phishing attach that blends technology and traditional methods combined with the misplaced security of speaking with someone on the phone.
This brings in phone phishing. Phone Phishing is becoming very popular, yielding a high success rate. The concept remains the same: fool someone into giving you personal information by impersonating another company, but the execution has a slight twist. There are a few different styles of phone phishing, with the most popular being when an attacker instructs the user to call a customer service number in order to rectify the bogus situation.
On the other end of the line, it could be a fake customer service representative or an automated message. It doesn’t matter. Either way, they are going to ask you to divulge personal information. This method has not been in use that long, but it is notably successful. People tend to feel more comfortable giving their information out over the phone instead of the Internet, especially when they feel they are safe.
There are variations of Phone Phishing, which I have summarized below:
* Some methods take advantage of the rich content smart phones that are out there today, which can send/receive instant messaging, as well as, e-mail. These are both more traditional methods of phishing that have proven to be highly successful in the past.
* There is a method of phone phishing that is identical to the method listed above, but instead of being directed to a phone number, you are instructed to go to a Web site, which is of course, fake and it then requests your personal information.
* A less traditional phishing scam (but still in the same family) is the method in which an attacker will use a police scanner to help capture cell phone calls. This is primarily for older analog phones that have little encryption on the audio transmission. With the newer digital phones, this isn’t an issue due to the encryption placed on the audio. With analog phones however, it is quite easy to steal audio from a transition.
Fortunately, there is one easy way to defend yourself against any phishing scam. Just simply remember to never respond to communication that is requesting you to call, e-mail or go to a Web site and log in with your personal information. Instead, always go out to the site on your own and log into your account. If there are any issues with your account, you will see it here and you will be able to fix it. The same can go with a customer service number given to you via e-mail. Use the phone number from one of the company's Web sites or from your billing information, if you have it. These steps will keep your information safe online and over the phone.
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Tips & Tricks: The End Key
Question: What does the End key do? I have been a little fearful about trying it.
Answer:
The End key, located on the right side of the keyboard, has different functions, depending on the program you are using. In Internet Explorer, press the End key to get to the bottom of the page (the Home key will get you back to the top)
In your word processing program and creating a new mail message in some email programs, the end key will move the cursor to the end of the current line. Press the Home key to move the cursor to the beginning of the current line.
Visit our newsletter archives for an explanation of all the keys on the keyboard:
http://computerkindergarten.com/html/102906.html
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This Week's Topic: Available Disk Space
Question: I fear my computer may be running out of storage space. I have a lot of files, both letters and music on it. How can I check on the space?
Answer:
You can check how much space is available on your hard drive and how much total space you have used.
Double click on the My Computer icon on your desktop.
Right click on your C: drive and left click on Properties in the resulting shortcut menu.
You will then see a pie chart showing you how much space on your drive is used and how much is free. You will also see numbers for of the total space on your drive, used space and free space.
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Question: Microsoft Word – Changing Paper Size
I need to print a Word document on a smaller paper size. Is there an easy way to do this?
Answer:
Yes, there is. In the document, click File and then Print as you normally do. In the Print dialog box that you now see, take a look at the Zoom area on the bottom right. You will see Scale to Size. Click the down arrow to the right of the current entry, and choose a size close to the paper size you want to use. Click OK to print the document.
You can also change the paper size using Page Setup in Word. Visit our newsletter archives for instructions:
http://computerkindergarten.com/html/091006.html
This method, however, may require you to reformat your document so that the contents will fit on a single page.
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Websites of Interest:
Pearl Harbor Day
December 7 is Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day. At the National Geographic website, you can read survivors stories and learn more about the ships and planes.
http://plasma.nationalgeographic.com/pearlharbor/
Visit this website for an overview and history of the events:
http://www.ccdemo.info/PearlHarbor/PearlHarborDayRemembered.html
From the Library of Congress, this is a descriptive account of aftermath of the attack.
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/dec07.html
Conversion Calculator
Bookmark this website for a handy calculator to convert measurements in area, length, volume, weight and mass.
http://education.yahoo.com/reference/weights_and_measures/
Drug Digest Drug Interactions
This is a good reference website to check the interactions between medications. Choose the two drugs in question and the website will tell you if there are any interaction issues.
http://www.drugdigest.org/DD/Interaction/ChooseDrugs/1,4109,,00.html
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