With Thanksgiving now behind us and the Holiday Season fast approaching, we are all looking at finding that perfect gift. Using the web, you can usually find it but can you get it at that bargain basement price. Well, unfortunately scammers know what we are looking for too. Fraudulent and malicious sites are popping up all over the internet, at this time of year, promising to ship the items you are looking for at real cheap prices. We all know about looking for TLS (Transport Layer Security), formally known as SSL (Secure Socket Layer) certificates before entering any personal information on any e-commerce site. We all know about checking URL’s to ensure that the site we are entering our personal information is, in fact, the site we intended to visit. But sometimes in the hustle and bustle that comes with the season, we forget, and get careless. Well, this is what the scammers are depending on. With phishing, scareware, browser hijacking, and malware on the rise, we could use all the help that we can get.
This is where WOT (Web Of Trust) comes into play. It is a lightweight plug-in that works in either Firefox or Internet Explorer and will alert you should you visit a known malicious site due to the “spirit of the season”. But this is not a certified authority, like VeriSign, that is a singular authority that verifies sites. WOT is made up of a large team that has checked over 25 million websites and will alert you before you click where you should not. WOT works with Google, Yahoo, and other search engines. Before you click on a search result, you will notice either a green, yellow, or red indicator as to the websites safety rating. Green means that the site is safe, yellow indicates that caution should be taken, and red is telling you that the site you are about to enter is known as a malicious site. WOT will also warn you should you click on a link to download software from a known malicious site. It will give you the option to over-ride the warning, but I would take the recommendation seriously.
To use WOT, download the add-on for your browser of your choice. Once it is installed, and you do a search, you will notice colored circles to the right of the search result. By hovering your mouse over the circle, a drop down window will appear showing the rating for the site in various categories including trustworthiness, vendor reliability, privacy, and child safety. Should you click on a known malicious site, a large warning will appear on your screen. Think carefully about clicking on a site in which you get this warning. You do get the option to proceed, but again, I would seriously consider against the click on the link. Sites, in which, WOT does not have sufficient information will be marked with a question mark.
Especially, during this festive season, it is imperative that we get all the help that we can in order to keep our computers malware free. But more importantly, it is imperative to keep our personal information out of the hands of the cyber-criminals. WOT is a great tool that is lightweight and will aid you in ensuring that you do not click on something that could harm either yourself or your computer. This is not fool proof, and should be used along with your best weapon…..common sense!!!!
To view a video about the Web Of Trust, click HERE…
To download the Web Of Trust, click HERE…..
Just another tool to help keep you safe.
Happy Holidays!!!
My Edible Earth 