Protection from fraudsters, scams and online extortion
Nowadays the Internet has truly become the second habitat for people. But unfortunately, as in the real world, it is not a completely safe place: in the dark corners of the Internet there are numerous bad actors who prey on your personal data in order to steal it and use it for their own benefit.
Types of online fraud
Cybercriminals use a variety of strategies to commit online fraud. Here we will describe the most popular ones:
Phishing sites. Such websites can be disguised as online stores, financial institutions, especially charity organizations, websites of payment systems and even banks. However, while entering your personal information (email address, password, card number, PIN-code) you are essentially passing the information to attackers.
Scam emails. Such emails look official and can address you on behalf of the site on which you are registered (or any other website). These letters ask the recipient to confirm personal data for security purposes or tell about promotions, offering to click the link. Clicking it takes the user to a fraudulent site. As you can see, the Scam emails scheme has one extra step compared to the scheme described above.
Examples, which have become classics: letters alleged to be from PayPal and eBay, requiring confirmation of your account. The main purpose of such machinations is to get your credit card information.
Online extortion. ”Enter your phone number to receive an SMS with an activation code”. A seemingly innocent phrase that you've seen hundreds of times. But if you come across it on a phishing site, it won't do you any good. There you will be asked to activate a subscription or account using your phone number. After that, your phone number will be charged, but the "activation" banner won't disappear... Most of the extortion sites are "file storages", which provide a download link only after the mandatory activation via SMS.
It would seem that all is clear. If anyone requires activation then you should immediately leave this site. But what if it's a website where you really need to subscribe? As it is the case with many online magazines and news portals. In order to not break your head over this and protect yourself and your device – install AdGuard. It will warn you when you try to access a dangerous site and will help you not to become a victim of fraud.
How does AdGuard work?
AdGuard Ad Blocker has the Browsing security module, which is designed to protect you from potential online threats. Once special filters against phishing and malicious websites are activated, AdGuard will be warning you at any attempt to visit an unreliable site.
The scope and methods of checks depend on the AdGuard product: our browser extensions only check the pages you visit. AdGuard apps for Windows, Mac and Android provide the best possible protection by checking both the pages and all objects downloaded to them.
The Browsing Security module working mechanism in browser extensions and apps is also different. You can read more about this in a separate article. But in short:
AdGuard apps firstly compare hash prefixes of website URLs to the local prefix database on your device. Note, that we don’t use the opened URLs and our server knows nothing about the websites that you visit.
If a match is found, AdGuard downloads a list of full hashes with the found prefix from the server and looks for a match. If there is an exact match, AdGuard will block the request and show a warning notification.
AdGuard Browser extensions work differently. Every time you visit any website, your local client exchanges information with our backend server in the form of hashes and hash prefixes. As a result of that exchange, the local client determines if the website belongs to the database of potentially dangerous websites or not.
Our filters are constantly updated and filled with new addresses. Since most of the work is automated, you can be sure that new malware and phishing addresses get into our database as quickly as possible.
Although AdGuard can detect phishing and malicious sites and block their download, it is not an antivirus. AdGuard can warn you about dangers, but it cannot, for example, stop malware downloads or delete viruses already existing on your device.
Trust AdGuard – it will take care of your security on the web. Protect yourself today: download AdGuard Ad Blocker with the Browsing security module and use the Internet without worrying about the safety of your personal data.
