We try to understand what lies behind the words to defend ourselves from the Internet. Here they are: phishing, to a deformation of the English fishing (literally "fish") which means "spillage of sensitive data"; spamming, or continuous reception of unsolicited messages; spyware, type of software that collects information about our online activities without our consent and, finally, what means "Internet security".

Between fishermen and spies

It is important to know that phishing is a criminal activity that comes to us with great ease and almost every day, because it uses a typical technique of social engineering. In simple terms, is a technique that is used to gain access to our personal or confidential information to steal - no less - our identity by means of bogus emails or instant messages or even phone calls. How do those who operate their core business of phishing? They try in the first instance, the logo and graphics of institutional sites well known by all who have trusted just because they are recognizable.

   For example, the logo of the Italian Mail, Poste Italiane, the logo of a bank, the logo of a company, providing services to national or regional level. Once the appropriate logo (via an easy copying of graphics), those who practice phishing send an email to a very large number of people and asked - very politely and always to "warn" - some personal data such as the number of bank account or credit card number, or identification codes or, simply, one or more passwords. Warning! The attacker, in so doing, looks as your provider for web or even a manager of a site to which you registered previously and which we have total confidence. And here is the trick because you never suspect that your bank or the site that comments on daily  liturgy can trap us.

   Indeed they don’t make it, but the "facade" of the mail we receive is tricking, which always contains "important notices" that seek to resolve situations or problems that occur under your account or checking account, such as an disproportionately charged, or the termination of your account, or even a cash offer or a prize. The email invites us to follow a link, clearly highlighted in the message we receive, so that the complaint /debits is not allocated or  regularizing our position.

   Unfortunately, the link that is provided does not lead to the official website where the logo guarantees, but like a copy of the official site which is located on a server controlled by the attacker and thus subject, under the guise of a confirmation or authenticated to the site, our information are taken and stored and then - more often than you think - are used to purchase goods, to transfer money or to serve as a bridge to subsequent attacks on our privacy.

 How to defend ourselves

 The threat described above should not be taken lightly because more and more phishers add a link that goes to the real site of  appropriated identity and, increasingly, even if we are not cheated out of our assets, we pay no unintentionally, laundering money or dispersing money in other countries. Unfortunately, the Italian legislation, lenders are not required to provide customers from internet fraud, so they do not compensate the sums that have been improperly withheld.

   So, how to defend ourselves? With absolute attention, never giving out personal information in case of doubt; then alerting your bank turning the  mail of  the fake site; checking often the movements of the account statement of the community (the people responsible to do so; using SMS alerts service when you spend on the Internet. Another way, immediately, to defend ourselves, you see the padlock icon that indicates that a secure connection is established. We may also use specific programs such as anti-spillage Netcraft toolbar that alerts you when you visit an allegedly inauthentic site. Another good technique of defense is to see if  in the mail, there are phrases like: "We ask you to confirm the details of your account", "If we do not receive a response within 48 hours your account will automatically be closed", "Click on the link below to get access to the account "and so on. There is always a generic "Dear Customer" and there is never our name. It might be enough suspicious for this indication.

An invasion of 'spam'

   As for spam, who are the authors of unsolicited e-mailings? Are classified as junk mailers or people who send real commercial advertisements unsolicited by the receivers; as mail bombers, or people who send a tremendous amount of mail clogging up our inbox and make us losing a lot of time in the discard; as forgers, or persons that send messages to others entering our e-mail addresses in the series and finally nuisances or those who enjoy to disturb with good or no reason. Even here, why? And how to defend ourselves?

   The reason is linked to the main purpose of spamming, which is advertising that goes from the most common and harmless business offers to the illegal sale of pirated software, drugs to be taken without a prescription or pornographic material, to request aid for humanitarian or personal causes. It is especially on the latter front that we could be more sensitive, therefore more vulnerable. I have in memory at least a dozen cases of religious, men and women,  who have asked me how to send aid to an alleged African seminarian in serious financial difficulties that prevented him from continuing in their studies and thus forced him to give up the priesthood. Cases of which I have kept the documentation for the finesse with the mails were written, interspersed with biblical quotations for this purpose. That's the Internet. We need to know it to defend ourselves.

   The behavior of spammers is considered unacceptable. To defend ourselves, we have not to enter in each site present on the Net! Sometimes, to make the download of a beautiful photograph that we can serve for the Power Point presentation to students of Confirmation, we enroll - we are required to do so and then the photo is so evocative ... - and so we are trapped. For months we receive a wide variety of spam without knowing that our address was "sold" precisely by those of symbolic pictures that we liked so much. I'm not saying that sometimes it is not necessary to register to receive services, just we do not need to register at all the sites we visit! A tip? If we send a message to some newsgroups to avoid spamming is good to use an anonymous remailer. What is it? Here's an example. One of my email addresses is sisternet@multidea.it.

   My anonymous remailers could be sis + te + r + net + I + @ mul + ti+ dea.it, with the addition of the note: " to get my address remove all the plus signs." Doing so we obvious being captured by a small software called “spider" that sneaks in the sites and collects addresses for resale. The spider can not catch us  because it do not understand the note: " to get my address remove all the plus signs." Some email programs has filters to prevent arriving spam. Never respond to spam email! It involves an increase in the arrival of more spam!

Spyware and anti-spyware

  Called "malicious software", they have different functions,  sending of unsolicited publicity to the information use gathered to steal your money. Unlike viruses, spyware does not autonomously spread , but they need our intervention to be installed and we will pay, this intervention, without realizing it. When? For example, if we download a free program. We pay the downloaded software with the invasion of our privacy. In milder cases, spyware steal information about our behavior when we use the Internet, or  our spending  time browsing, such as connection times and websites that we visit.

   The collected data are sent to the remote computer that sends publicity according to  the internet visits we have done. Not be surprised. In a sense, "we sought succeed." If you accumulate a lot of spywares our browsing speed is reduced, also occupy a lot of memory on our computer and, at worst, we risk the entire system to become unstable. Beware of the software offered for free,  even though many open source programs have nothing to do with the spyware. We install a specific program called anti-spyware, that is like an antivirus and is born with the aim of removing spyware. In addition, we constantly update our browsers, be it Explorer, Firefox, Opera or Safari.

Safety First

  We distinguish between hackers and crackers. The first are "fanfaronades”, but no damage us, while the latter are responsible for criminal acts that are committed against individuals or companies. Beware of free dialer or connection programs - always wary - that  can divert to service numbers to charge. Finally, beware of the viruses. The transmission systems are numerous and often go for e-mail: worms are small programs, the Trojans (Trojan horses) open the virtual doors of the computer; macro-viruses are contained in Word or Excel documents and take advantage of the folders "macro" of these two popular programs. We have to use a good antivirus and update it constantly.

   For communities and schools, Norton offers special rates. Use of good firewalls that control the comings and goings between us and the Internet. These "walls of fire", which can be software or hardware, are like sentinels at the gates and  report any anomalies to us. We  have not to trust  just a software, but we opt for a hardware firewall.

   The real, big security filter is beyond the knowledge of  few presented tricks, our responsibility in attendance of sites  and in the use of Internet  in general. An even larger filter is the clear goal of "creating new areas of knowledge and dialogue, suggesting and creating itineraries of communion" (Message for the 44th World Day for Social Communication).