Identify what makes an Internet address secure
Remember that you will find an entire business on the web with one goal: Sneak as many personal individual details as possible, in order to organize them and sell them. Criminals will sell your details to other criminals, leaving you with a huge and growing problem.
Email – spam
These criminals will collect and sell personal details to other criminals. You are aware of the danger of letting go of you email address. Spammers doesn’t hesitate a second sending millions of spam emails to addresses they have collected or bought from other criminals. Your fraction of a second attention to the spam email is why the spammers are in business. It doesn’t matter if you have the world’s best spam filter, the spam mail gets to you and its content will still be accessible in your garbage mail folder. You know that you some times just have to check if an important mail has ended in this folder.
Spam email exists in all forms. Some of them appear to come from someone you trust. Some times they show you a link leading to a website which seems familiar, asking you to update or confirm your personal details. Some times this web destination is embedded into the email. If you do what they want you to do, you have created yourself a really huge problem.
Snitch – fake websites
Fake websites are created in order to steal your personal information. If you are mislead to one of these sites and do what you are asked for, you are in big trouble.
Remember that NO serious gambling provider will ask you for your personal details in an email. They will NOT under any circumstance ask you to enter your password in any offsite website. And absolutely NOT in any email.
If you for some odd reasons need to change some personal login details, do NOT follow any links from any email received. Go to your bookmarked site and perform the action from there.
Watch out for the copycats
Criminal will do their best in order to create fake websites as similar as possible to the website they want to exploit. Their websites might be perfect copies and you might be fooled to enter your information.
Checkpoints:
What is the URL in the address bar? Is it exactly the same URL as in your service? Let us make an example:
You are gambling online on Web at TheCasino.com. Their URL is: http://www.thecasino.com
When you are logged in and playing, the URL might look like this:
https://casino.thecasino.com/some-parameters
If you are lead to an URL with this address:
https://casino-thecasino.com/some-parameters it will be a TOTALLY different website address! Any legal URL on your example casino will be https://ANYTHING.thecasino.com/ANYTHING.
Do you note the difference? The legal and correct URL is X.thecasino.comX
Your casino will NEVER be found at Xcasino-thecasino.comX. It is an entire different website address, and 100 % scam.
Remember the S
Another thing to look for is that you shall not provide critical personal details on websites which NOT use encryption and secure transfers. All websites which encrypt your details are known by this: their URL starts with https:// and not http://.
Decent Casinos uses modern Secure Socket Layer (SSL) technology on all webpages that contain your personal information. SSL works by encrypting all confidential data so that it cannot be understood by anyone except your gambling provider.
Sending web data un-encrypted is like broadcasting your personal data to the entire world. You could as well write the same data and publish them on your Facebook profile!
So, remember the S. The S is for Secure. You want to be secure. End of discussion.
Look for the padlock
A padlock in the address field signalize in most browsers that you are on a secure connection. So, look for the padlock, but beware! Scammers have another trick here:
On many websites you can see a small icon before the URL. This is known as a favicon, a favourite icon. It is attached to the specific URL and is a visual candy, hard to design.
Scammers might try to fool you and make you believe that you have ended on a site which is on a secure connection. After all, it really IS a padlock next to the URL. But wait.. there is NO httpS://?
If so, you can be 100 % sure that the padlock is ONLY a favicon attached to the site. Its presence is for just one reason: fool you, and make you feel safe. They want to steal your information!
What is the consequences?
It is obvious that you will be hurt really bad if someone gets your credit card information. As long as they got all numbers, the expiration date, your CVV 2 (a three letter control number) and your name, the criminals can start using your money as they like. You will be in deep shit.
Apart from your credit card information, your name and other personal details are also valuable for heartless cold-bloody criminals. Your whole identity is a merchandise.
If your identity profile is stolen, others might start a whole new career in your name. They can order expensive goods. They can apply for expensive credit cards, get loans, make a passport, check in at expensive hotels, travel the world and commit severe crime. All in your name. You would not like to be recognized as a hitman? Or spend the rest of your life paying for money you have never seen? Just imagine what a nightmare this could be.
And remember: The criminals might not need all your personal information, just bits of it. You might already have exposed much of it already, for example on Facebook.
The lesson
Trust no-one. Do NOT pay any attention to emails asking you for your details. Let the criminals rot in un-peace.
If you get a scam mail, note the company in risk. They might take actions in order to protect their customers. Consider noticing the police as well. And remember that Google is your friend. If you get a strange email, try to google up parts of the content.
Be awake and be safe!
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