  Since 2017, complaints about computer scams have increased quickly in the last 4 years, from 1,963 complaints in 2017 to 4,898 reported in October of this year. - A.M. Costa Rica illustrative photo - |
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 Published Tuesday, December 8, 2020 Online
tool to verify official government
sites and avoiding scams launches By the A.M. Costa Rica staff Computer scams increased considerably this year in Costa Rica due to fake websites, known as web spoofing, which mislead people to obtain sensitive data from bank accounts or scams. Spoofing is a website, as a hoax, to mislead readers that the website is original. Normally, the spoof website will adopt the design of the target website, including a similar URL. A more sophisticated attack results in an attacker creating a "shadow copy" of the page by having all of the victim's traffic go through the attacker's machine, causing the attacker to obtain the victim's sensitive information. Another technique has 'cloaked' the URL by using domain forwarding or inserting control characters, making the URL appear to be genuine while concealing the actual address of the malicious website. The Punycode can also be used for this purpose. Punycode-based attacks exploit similar characters in different writing systems in common fonts. The objective may be fraudulent, often associated with phishing or e-mail spoofing, or to criticize or make fun of the person or body whose website the spoofed site purports to represent. Because the purpose is often malicious, "spoof" is a poor term for this activity so that more accountable organizations such as government departments and banks tend to avoid it, preferring more explicit descriptions such as "fraudulent" or "phishing," During this year, more than 290 fake sites have been reported in the country, according to the Costa Rican Computer Security Incident Response Center, which is part of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Telecommunications. According to the statistics provided by the Judicial Investigation Organization, since 2017, complaints about computer scams have increased quickly in the last 4 years, from 1,963 complaints in 2017 to 4,898 reported in October of this year. To avoid being scammed, people who have doubts about the veracity of a website can use the new tool to verify official government websites. On the Sitio Oficial web page enabled by the ministry, people can enter the link of the dubious website, where an alert will confirm if the site is original or could be a scam. For example, when entering the official site of the Banco de Costa Rica but with a modification in the URL, such as www.bancobcr.net and clicking on the word Validar (validation in English) it is displayed a notice that the website is fake. With this tool, people will be alerted if it is a legitimate website, which at first glance looks like an official site. On Thursday, the global computer systems security company Norton advises that people should follow basic steps beforehand to avoid fraud. According to Norton, the RSA estimated that e-commerce fraud-related losses will reach almost $6.4 million by 2018, nearly doubling the current numbers. The most common types of e-commerce themes include credit card fraud, identity theft, chargebacks, and bogus returns. These affect both consumers and merchants. Some of the warning signs of possible fraud include late-night orders, dropbox addresses, items placed for sale outside of the country, express shipping, free/anonymous email services, high dollar orders, and cases in which the “ship to” address differs from the billing one. Ways that consumers can protect themselves from e-commerce fraud include: • Shopping at secure websites. • Researching the website before they place the order. • Reading the site’s policies on privacy and security. • Being mindful of cookies. • Never give out your social security number. Merchants can reduce fraud by: • Verifying a cardholder’s info. • Using transaction controls. • Maintaining an internal negative file. • Implementing a transaction data field. -------------------- Do you know anyone who has been scammed online? We would like to know your thoughts on this story. Send your comments to news@amcostarica.com |
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