“Malware Peddlers Look to Exploit Olympic Luge Tragedy“  That is the title of an article posted on mashable.com yesterday.  Yes, the sad truth is that cyber-criminals are using a man’s death to find a way into your computer and your wallet.  Many were interested in the details of the Winter Olympic tragedy and, in their search to find the video of the accident in question, were tricked into installing malicious software on their computer.

Scams like these are becoming more and more common.  As PC and internet users we have just a few choices.  We can avoid using the internet completely (not likely) or arm ourselves with the right tools to prevent malware attacks, spyware trickery, phishing scams, etc.  Anti-virus and anti-malware programs can detect and prevent most malicious software when it gets to your computer, but what about preventing this malware from ever getting to you.   This is where My Web of Trust (WOT) comes in.

WOT is s a FREE Internet security add-on for your browser (Firefox, Internet Explorer and NOW Google Chroms). It will keep you safe from online scams, identity theft, spyware, spam, viruses and unreliable shopping sites. WOT warns you before you interact with a risky website.  The WOT add-on investigates the links you see on your web browser and checks their trustworthiness, vendor liability, privacy and child safety. With the sum of all these, WOT assigns a rating of green (trustworthy), yellow (proceed with caution) or red (warning).  The rating is indicated by a tiny, color-coded icon that is displayed next to each of the links in your browser.

WOT uses both the users’ ratings and the trusted lists, such as phishing website links to assign ratings.  This user-based rating system is what really gives strength to the Web of Trust.  With over 5 million users and ratings for over 24 million websites, WOT serves as an exceptional second-layer of security for your web browsing experience.  In addition to the ratings posted within the most trusted sites on the web (Google, Yahoo!, Live Search, Wikipedia, digg, …), WOT also warns you about dangerous links in Gmail, Windows Live Hotmail, and Yahoo! Mail.

Installation of WOT takes seconds.  The result, a very simple addition of colored “rings” next to links within your browser.  Green rings are good.  Yellow rings mean proceed with caution.  Red rings mean STOP!  This ultra-simplistic approach to warning you of malicious links is another valuable level of security that you cannot afford to live without.  Here is a quick rundown of what happens when you are presented with a site that has a “poor reputation”:

1) Within your search results, a Red ring indicates a link you should NOT click on

2) If you did click on the link, you would be warned again, with this full screen image

Get WOT today and add a new level of security to your web browsing experience.  Visit http://www.mywot.com for more information and download links.  Remember, it is FREE.  What do you have to lose?

Tags: malicious, Malware, My Web of Trust, Olympics, safe, scam, surfing, threats, WOT

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 16th, 2010 at 11:02 am and is filed under Firefox, Free Programs, Security, Tips and Tricks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.