Become a website scam checker and know how to protect your site. But to do this you may want to know what cybercrime is, and how can it affect your website? Let’s take a look at cybercrime, malicious scammers and how you can protect yourself against this scam. We will also look at the different types of crimes that internet thieves use to gain information and why they want this information.
What Is Cybercrime?
Cybercrime is one or a group of internet thieves who use a network and a computer to hack information. These crimes may be aimed at individuals or groups but have the intention of causing mental or physical harm, loss to the victim, or damage to a reputation.
Cybercrime ranges from individual personal attacks to massive terrorist attacks. Here we will talk about the cybercrime leveraged against your website. So please be aware and become a skilled website scam checker.
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Types Of Website Scams
1. Third-Party Content Injection
2. Phishing Scam
3. Eavesdropping
4. Website copycat content
Third-Party Content Injection
Someone not associated with your website comes along and changes the data then a hacker will add links to your site. These links redirected your readers to other sites or ads like pornography or pharmaceuticals.
I had a link on my website one time that was advertising a private I in a foreign country. All of my traffic redirected to this advertisement, which made it appear that I was promoting this company. The company was using my traffic to build their business without doing any work for the ad.
The hacker may get access through your IP address or a plugin on your site.
Google search engines can usually pick up on this type of scam and Connecting your site to google console will help you keep an eye on the site health. Keeping a close eye on your Google console will help you become a better website scam checker. If Google detects a third party, they will give you an alert. This alert will come after the hack has happened. You may get a spike in your traffic before Google sends a signal.
One way to prevent this type of scam is to protect your site with SSL (Secure Sockets Layer). SSL keeps your online communication encrypted between your browser and the web server. My web hosting company, Wealthy Affiliate offers free SSL for all websites.
Phishing Scam
It is just like it sounds. A hacker uses bait to lure you into giving them information. You access your website on your computer, right? Anyone who can get access to your computer can get access to all of your login and passwords — logins that connect to your AdSense, Amazon Associates, and the email addresses of your followers. You get the picture. A hacker can access any part of your website through a phishing scam.
It may go like this. You receive an official looking email that states something like; someone logged into your Wealthy Affiliate account. You need to change your password, and the link is attached for you to click. It appears to be an authentic Wealthy Affiliate site. You change your password, and the scammer have all of your information.
Or it may say that Google has detected a suspicious link in your website and give you a link to click and change your password to your site. It all looks official, so you set a new password, and there you have it. You have been baited and caught.
This type of scam is designed to get all of your information and use it to make money or exploit someone.
To prevent a phishing scam never allow anyone to have access to your computer and never open an email like this. If you are concerned, go directly to the site like Amazon and change your password in your settings tab.
Eavesdropping
Someone is listening in on your activity on the internet. It is an unauthorized practice at this time. When you send a message to someone else in the form of email, comments, messaging, and other types, it is encrypted. The person on the other end, unscrambles the message with internet encryption.
When a hacker has the encryption key code, they can see all of what you are doing on the internet. They use this information to profile you so companies can send all of the right ads to you.
You can use a masking company to give you better control over your ads and internet history. I am not a promoter of these companies so if you are interested you can find different ones by searching google for “prevent internet eavesdropping” and you will find numerous articles suggesting a solution.
As a new website scam checker, I urge you to please keep an eye on any news on eavesdropping as it is becoming more advanced and technology evolves.
Website Copycat Content
A scam like this is a tough one because it can go unnoticed for months while someone else is reaping the rewards of your hard work.
I did find a free copy checker. I am not sure how long it is free, but you can check your URL on Copyscape. I did use it for my URL. It came up clean, thank goodness.
You can search some of your post title or content in google to see what comes up then follow any suspicious links.
There is a place on Google to report this and have the copied site removed. DMCA complain.
I have seen some suggestions to email the person, but a lot of the time the emails are fake and go nowhere.
I can only say I hope this never happens to you or me because I have heard it is a real headache.
This post is in no way a conclusive website scam checker. With evolving technology, cybercriminals are developing new ways to scam us every day. Please be aware of website scams, and hopefully, you have some knowledge to protect your online website internet business.
Please refer to the FBI cybercrime website for more in-depth information on cybercrime.
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Thanks for the warning Laura.
I know phishing scams as I almost fell victim to one when I received an email that appears to be from PayPal telling me to re-verify my account using their link. But I chose to open a new tab to log into my PayPal account and entered my query. I then received a response from PayPal informing me that everything is fine with my account and no re-verification is needed. That’s when became suspicious and started searching about online scams. I found out that it’s called phishing.
But what I can’t imagine is the thought that someone else is listening in on you and will know exactly what you’re doing. This is really scary! Will covering my webcam help?Anyway, I will be looking more into eavesdropping and see if there are services I can avail to prevent me and my website from being targeted by this kind of internet scam.
Alice, You are right that PayPal email was a type of phishing scam. You did well by not opening it. Way to go girl.
Funny you should ask about covering your camera. I use to think this also. But the eavesdropping in done through the encryption of the web. So no that won’t help at all.
Hi Laura,
Thank you for warning us about this.
It seems some people have nothing better to do that steal from others.
We certainly live in wild times these days!
I have had links changed before without my knowledge. Fortunately I found out quickly.
One time I even had a software program installed on my host. How that happened I have no idea and when I contacted the host, they froze my site for 2 weeks on the assumption that I was a risk to their servers.
Nice to have support !
I am confident now that my host will treat me better as I am with Wealthy Affiliate.
They certainly seem to treat us with respect and a lot of their services such as SSL are free, which is great.
It is also important to update plugins as soon as they need it.
One of the ways hackers gain entry is through vulnerabilities in plugins.
Also 1 more thing recommended is that you change your username from ‘Admin’ and make a complex password.
This is one of the easiest doors in for hackers.
If you need help remembering complex passwords use a tool such as Lastpass which is a free password management program.
I use it on all my passwords. I only have to remember the password to Lastpass as Lastpass remembers all my passwords and enters them for me.
It’s a great tool.
Hope this helps.
Tim
Oh MY, Tim, I didn’t know this. Updating your plugins is so important and changing from admin but the tip about LastPass is a life saver. I so appreciate this bit of information for myself and my readers. thank you so much.
This is an incredible article if for nothing else but to remind us those cyber scam artists are out there and are forever lurking just sniffing at the chance to pounce as soon as they sense a bit of weakness.Cyber crime is actually quite scary. These back door people can swoop right in and take everything that you have worked so hard for in your internet business.Thank you for taking the time to write such a great article to remind us to keep on our toes and not get complacent.Dale
Thank you, Dale, I appreciate your support. A lot of these tips I didn’t know until recently and wanted to get the word out. Feel free to share if you find someone in need. Again thank you.
You haven’t mentioned anything I haven’t heard before but you have mentioned it clearer and explained all the issues well. As a content creator my biggest fear is someone copying my work and reaping those benefits, i will have to check out Copyscape. Thanks for the breakdown of all these hazards
Marvin, I too fear a copycat. Everything I have heard says it is a real nightmare to get the copied site taken off of the internet. It can be done but is very time-consuming. Yes, check out the Copyscape. I found it to be very helpful.
Hi, thanks for sharing this piece of awesome content. I am very interested on how to detect scam such as third party content injection. I saw that you mention to leverage on Google Console to check on site health and potential scam. Do you have a step-by-step method to do this?
Florence, The biggest thing to watch for on google console is a spike in users to your site. A big spike from one day to the next can be a sign of content injection as your URL may be redirecting to another site. If this happens it is important to dig deeper into your console and see where users are coming from and where they are redirected to. Hope this helps.