PB TEAM | JALANDHAR
As January is a data privacy month of the year and is celebrated every year with the aim of generating awareness among the people about Data Security and Privacy. Data Privacy Month is an international effort to empower individuals and encourage businesses to respect privacy, safeguard data and enable trust.
Whether a student, faculty, or staff, all of us exist in digital form on the Internet. When you’re online, you leave a trail of digital exhaust in the form of cookies, GPS data, social network posts, browser searches, and email. Services that you don’t even use can actually, quietly pick up on your trail and piece together, various information about you. Of course, once something gets online, it can be there forever, so it’s more important that to never make yourself an easy target, but HOW?
This curiosity made us to consult Mr. Mudit Sinha. He’s a Cyber Security Researcher as well as a Trainer. He had trained city Police, IT Cell and Border Security Forces (Faridkot, near Lahore border). He told us about some most done online frauds and its preventive measures that how a common person can halt them.
Credit card fraud
Card fraud basically involves theft of identity or information on your card. This information is then used to conduct ATM withdrawals or online or offline transactions. Theft can occur in one of the following ways:
1.Automatic Teller Machines (ATM):
Machines have become a favorite target of scamsters and fraudsters. They use various techniques to steal your card information
2.Skimming:
This technique involves attaching a data skimming device to a card reader slot, copying information from the magnetic strip when someone swipes the card. They also put cameras near the machine to get the PIN.
3.Card Trapping:
This is a barb that retains the card when it is inserted into the machine and the card is later retrieved.
4.Shoulder Surfing:
Be careful if you find friendly buyers in or out of the room who try to help you when you get stuck or caressed your card. They will meet you there to reveal your PIN.
5.Leaving Card / PIN:
If you write your PIN on the card and forget it in an ATM kiosk or machine, it is a virtual invitation to get targeted by fraudsters.
How to stay safe?
Following are some basic preventive steps that can ensure you, not to become a victim of credit or debit card fraud:-
ATM security measures:
- Don’t use dirty or cluttered-looking ATMs. They may work on or spoof fake machines to gain information about your card.
- Don’t use ATMs with unusual signage, such as a command to enter a PIN twice to complete the transaction, which also appears crooked, loose or damaged at the front. This may be an indication that someone has attached a skimming device. Check the machine.
These were some suggestions to tackle Credit Card fraud, but later in the second section of the article you’ll get to know about the Online Transactions and how not to get cheated by it.
