» Smart Phones, Web Design, Google or whatever
Safe to Search? When SEO Goes Bad
Free, Screensavers, 2009 Saturn, Lyrics
Can you just look at keywords and see which ones are safe? Aren’t they all safe? No. And you can’t just look at a search term to decide if its safe any more than you can look at a book’s cover to see if the book will be any good – a little reading is on order. A ZDNet article two days ago about dangerous keywords reminded me about a painful lesson.
Unfortunately all search terms are not created equal… and Cybercriminals know it. The bad guys (scammers, hackers and the like) use SEO (coding your website so search engines rank it well) and SEM (paying to have search engines list your site). Unfortunately not only the good guys use SEO & SEM to get people to their websites, but so do the bad guys. Several of years back I was googling for a new screensaver or wallpaper or something and I ended up on one of those websites that tricked me into downloading a virus or malware or something that was not good – its been a while and my virus scanner was up-to-date and I got lucky and cleaned my machine of the downloaded infection.
Although McAfee touts McAfee SiteAdvisor as a way to minimize your risk (there are free and paid versions) education can go a long way. Nothing will ever make you 100% safe on the Internet, but these tips should help a lot
- keep your computer updated
- read Mafee’s “The Web’s Most Dangerous Search Terms” (PDF format)
- know how to close your browser when popups try to take control
- educate yourself about online scams and malware
| Print article | This entry was posted by George on May 29, 2009 at 9:04 pm, and is filed under Scams. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site. |
ABOUT COMMENTING ON THIS BLOG
Comments are moderated by a human and will be approved if they bring value to the discussion. This means comments are on topic, relevant and useful. Here are some ways to insure your comment is rejected, marked as spam or will be edited (at my discretion):
- Using keywords, business names or website names in the Name field
- Putting a spammy site/page in the Website field
- Foul, abusive or discriminatory language
- Comments for SEO only purposes
No comments yet.
No trackbacks yet.
ESET Smart Security 5 Cool Video
about 1 year ago - No comments
Hey, check out this cool new movie … oh, that’s no movie its an Advertisement for an ESET Smart Security 5, which includes ESET Nod32 Antivirus. Do You Have ESET Smart Security 5 Yet? Contrary to what many people think, McAfee and Norton do not provide the best antivirus (AV) protection for your computer. Also,
The Increasing Dangers of Facebook – Part 2
about 1 year ago - No comments
Originally posted from one of my other blogs, George’s Wonder Blog on August, 5, 2008 – and little has really changed in that Facebook is not for the faint of heart. You need to be careful. MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter attacked by social engineering – fake flash downloads I’ve recently read about ‘Web worm’ attacks
Gmail Blog Highlights Passwords
about 3 years ago - 2 comments
As part of National Cyber Security Awareness Month (see Gmail’s post for a link) Gmail is reminding people to use passwords wisely and has some great tips. I am somewhat of a security freak (as those who know me will attest to) and I heartily recommend reading Google’s post. Here are some bad password practices
Spammers copycat valid emails
about 3 years ago - No comments
Spammers are nothing if not smart copycats. Why write your own copy (text message) and come up with your own ideas for formatting emails when you can take ideas directly from valid emails? That exactly what I see happening more and more lately. Take this email for example: This message contains images. If you don’t
