Cyber Security for netizens

At present over 90 % of all Americans use the internet, atleast once a day. It is estimated that of the 337 million North Americans, over 248 million Americans have dedicated internet facility in their apartments. Americans comprise over 27% of the total internet users from all over the world.

With the huge number of people searching and buying products and utilities, the internet has become an attractive place for scamsters, for social engineers, whose sole motive is to trick you into gaining some profit. Moreover the internet being relatively new, legislation is poor. And at the few places that there is a cyberlaw, there are numerous loop holes.

Hence the only way that people can prevent falling into such traps, is to look out for one another. A number of internet organizations have come up in the recent past for this specific reason. For example Crimereports.org aims to inform netizens of scams that others have come across. By alerting people about such traps they hope to become the internet “Neighborhood Watch”. Another website TheCyberHoodWatch.com by Bill Wardell and David Ballard, blogs about recent happenings in the world of cyber-security. The local government of Utah has taken steps to prevent such acts of cyber crime too. For example the Utah Attorney General Mark Shutleff, is promoting the program for Responsible Cyber Citizen and aiming to take it to the national level.

Although these programs are good, and they do alert people against such crimes, the best way to be secure is to be alert against such crimes, while surfing the internet.