E-learning offered in Malaysian universities: Pros & Cons from students perspective

Electronic learning (E-Learning) is a term for all types of technology-enhanced learning (TEL), where technology is used to support the learning process.In most Universities, e-learning is used to define a specific mode to attend a course or programmes of study where the students rarely, if ever, attend face-to-face for on-campus access to educational facilities, because they study online.E-Learning lessons are generally designed to guide students through information or to help students perform in specific tasks. Information based e-Learning content communicates information to the student.

But in my mind, does e-learning work in university of Malaysia?

Ok. Lets us ask ourselves as a student do you really pay 100% study online?

How about the credibility that e-learning will work in Malaysia?

Do you trust the quality of e-learning method in Malaysia?

Lastly. Do you prefer to study without face to face interaction with your lecturer ?

So, let us see what are the advantage of e-learning. There are numerous benefits of acquiring online degree, and those already enrolled in distance education programs know the true worth of the education they receive.

Advantages of e-learning:

a) Class work can be scheduled by student who they feel free..
b) Reduces travel cost and time to and from school.
c) Students may have the option to select learning materials that meets their level of knowledgeand interest .
d) Students can study wherever they have access to a computer and Internet.
e) Self-paced learning modules allow students to work at their own pace.
f ) Students also feel flexibility to join discussions in the bulletin board threaded discussion areas at any hour, or visit with classmates and instructors remotely in chat rooms.
g) Students also provide different learning styles are addressed and facilitation of learning occurs through varied activities .
h) Development of computer and Internet skills that are transferable to other facets of learner's lives
i) Successfully completing online or computer-based courses builds self-knowledge and self-confidence and encourages students to take responsibility for their learning.

Just like anything else in life,e-leaning has its disadvantages as well in our student perspective.

Disadvantages of e-learning:

a) Students feel unmotivated or those with poor study habits may fall behind.

b) Students feel dificulty because lack of familiar structure and routine.

c) Students may feel isolated or miss social interaction.
d) Instructor may not always be available on demand which make students feel more confused on their assignment.

e) Sometimes student may having some internet technical problem such as slow or unreliable Internet connections can be frustrating .
f) Some courses such as traditional hands-on courses can be difficult to simulate for student which cannot learn through online.

Lastly, there are numerous benefits of proper accreditation, but it is importance for those who are willing to seek employment upon graduation. Not all online colleges and universities are accredited and you need to make sure that you go for one which is properly accredited and recognized state-wide.

Corporate Blogging: A new marketing communication tool for companies

That is a known fact that blogging is not just for individuals. Corporate blogs that utilize their reach to promote their products and businesses started to gain popularity among people. Thus, blog has emerged as one of the low cost and high return – the best marketing tool on the web. Blogging has given a new way for the marketers to interact with possible customers and clients – Promote!!

If a company knows how to maximize marketing opportunities through its blog, the blog can be one of the best marketing tools that a company will be hiding in the tool box. The types of corporate blogs are internal blogs, external blogs and CEO blogs.


How can a blog boost business sales?
The blog is not only helps a company build stronger relationships with their important target groups such as clients, the media, the general public and shareholders.

It also provides:-

• Company with an opportunity to run low cost public relationship.
• Company's customers with information they might need. In other words, they see the company as an expert.
• Company's customers with some human interaction in the website- give comments.
• Company's business the opportunity to build a group of followers.
• Company's business a chance to get instant feedback for new products or ideas.
• Help to company's website rank higher in the search engines.

Pros of Corporate Blogging

• Company can communicate directly with customers, suppliers and investors, as well as employees, spread wisely information and explain strategy.

• Blogs give company an opportunity to answer critics in a controlled forum.

• Compared with conference or printed memos to all staff, enterprise blogs are highly cost effective.

• Sharing their ideas freely in an honest voice brings the blogging companies new connections and generate trust which will lead to business opportunities galore.

• Blogs have a broad impact on the nature of online media by giving an opportunity to publish words, pictures and - ultimately - multimedia to the web without specialized geek skills.

• A well written blog can give a human face to an otherwise anonymous enterprise.

• They boost company's search engine rankings if the company adds fresh content on a regular basis. Google and other search engines rewards sites that are updated often, that link to other sites and most importantly, that has many inbound links.

• People are far more likely to give great feedback if they know someone specific is listening. The power of these feedback loops can generate big benefits.

• Blogs' diary format gives a sense of immediacy, and regular posting soon creates a large, searchable database of information hyperlinked to extra relevant material.

• They mark the company as authentic and forward-looking.

• If updated consistently, they establish the company as a thought leader in the industry niche.

• Blogs are ideal for internal collaboration being a workspace where project members keep each other updated without wasting time writing reports or searching the Outlook inbox.

• Being informal, blogs can provide company with a measure of value. Publish an idea and see if it generates interest.

• If company's blog has a positive effect on the company’s reputation then it is very beneficial to the career.

Cons of Corporate Blogging

• Not only can companies find blog marketing harmful, many companies can also find it damaging.
• Companies feel that marketing in blog affects editorial content and devalues the medium.
• Knowing that other people are offered money to mention a product on their site, the product is offered in a bias way.
• The honesty of the writing is affected when companies' interests are paying the bills.
• After all, social networks like blogs are about building community, not about selling.

Examples of Corporate Blogging

Intel Corporate Blogging

McDonald Corporate Blog

The corporate blogging might span rapidly to cover all the aspects of business activities. There are customer service, product and service marketing, technical support, product evaluation and etc. Those companies need to communicate authentically shape the business world.

Reference:

Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_blog on 8 July 2009
Retrieved from http://www.blogopreneur.com/2007/03/30/the-benefits-of-corporate-blogging/ on 8 July 2009

E-Goverment in Malaysia: Its implementation so far and citizen's adoption strategies.

What is e-government?
Electronic government, generally known as ‘e-government’ is defined as the use of Internet and other digital devices in public sector to deliver services and information.

Exploiting the opportunities of the internet.

Everyone’s Connected, Everything’s Accessible

Until recent years, e-government has been widely adopted in most countries in order for the countries to achieve good governance. The adoption of e-government integrates both the processing and the communication technologies since it integrates people, processes, information, and technology in the service of achieving government objectives. By implementing e-government, it will help to improve the government processes, connect citizens and build interactions with and within the civil society.

The implementation of e-government started since the initiation of Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) by Malaysian government. There is still lack of study in the area of e-government in Malaysia currently even though it is part of Vision 2020. However, there are some current application of e-government in Malaysia such as e-Filling, renewing road tax and driving license online, and KWSP i-Account.

What is MSC Malaysia?

MSC Malaysia is the gateway to growing profits in Asia's booming information and communications technology (ICT) markets. Modeled after Silicon Valley, it gives us the best of first-world knowledge and infrastructure, at developing-nation costs. From the development of innovative flagship applications to cybercities and cybercentres across Malaysia, MSC Malaysia is continuously pushing the limits of innovation towards achieving its vision.

E-government was one of the Seven Flagship Application introduced by MSC in order to lead the Malaysian towards the objectives of Vision 2020. However, there are seven pilot projects of the Electronic Government Flagship Application :

1. Project Monitoring System (SPP II)
2. Human Resource Management Information System (HRMIS)
3. Generic Office Environment (GOE)
4. Electronic Procurement (EP)
5. Electronic Services (E-services)
6. Electronic Labour Exchange (ELX)
7. E-syariah

Project Monitoring System (SPP II)

SPP II as one of the e-government projects will create a mechanism to monitor project implementation throughout various government agencies and statutory bodies. SPP II would also provide a platform to exchange ideas and to demonstrate best practices in information management and communication services.

Human Resource Management Information System (HRMIS)

HRMIS provide single interface for government employees to perform human resource functions effectively and efficiently in an integrated environment.

Generic Office Environment (GOE)

GOE used to introduce a fully integrated, distributed and scalable office environment that leverages use of multimedia information technology. This enables efficient communication, allowing collaboration across all workers, and ensuring right information reaching the right people in a timely manner.

Electronic Procurement (EP)

EP is to re-engineer, automate, and transform current procurement system. The use of EP will increase transparency, save time and money.

Electronic Services (E-services)

E-services is a pilot project that allows citizens of Malaysia to engage in transactions with government and utilities payments such as telephone and electricity bill, police summons, etc.

Electronic Labour Exchange (ELX)

ELX is one stop-centre for labor market information, as supervised by the Ministry of Human Resource (MORH), to enable employers and job seekers to communicate on the same platform.

E-syariah

E-syariah eventually enhance the Islamic Affairs Department’s effectiveness through better monitoring and co-ordination of its agencies and improving the management of its 102 Syariah courts.

There are some problems faced in e-government implementation:

1) Language barrier is one of problems faced by e-government. Most of the government websites are using Bahasa Malaysia so this may have difficulties for some citizens who do not know Bahasa Malaysia.

2) Lack of incentives to apply e-government makes the process of e-government implementation just a formal procedure that makes no impact on existing work scheme.

3) Malaysians are not adopting to use electronic transaction such as online banking and buying things through Internet. This is still new to some of the citizens.

4) Some of Malaysians are not confidence with the security of e-government websites because there are many frauds issues arise.

Citizen’s adoption strategies

The government should increase the awareness from citizens in the existing of their services provided in e-government. For example, do some advertisement through newspaper, magazine, radio, or billboards in order to increase their awareness. The government can encourage citizens to increase the usage of e-government by giving some allowances.

E-government adoption requires that citizens show higher levels of satisfaction and security with the online service provided by the government. A higher level of customer satisfaction will increase the rate of e-government adoption because the citizens are comfortable of the protected privacy and confidentiality of the user's information. Besides, they will feel more confident with the e-government system.

The service quality of e-government also should be competitive with the other developed country in terms of speed, problem serving approach, and ease of use of the website. This is crucial as it provides and encourages long-term users to use the website frequently and cut-off paper work when the payment process can be made through online.

Review of a local e-commerce site, www.lelong.com.my

Lelong.com.my powers a robust and secure avenue for virtual trading in Malaysia. The idea of an auction site in Malaysia has taken off with tremendous response. With a local flavour, members feel a sense of belonging and constantly keep in contact with the Lelong Development Team to give feedback, be it positive or negative. With the experience they gained from running the site for the past years, they can be considered to be well poised to deliver a site that is full of quality content to its members. Starting based on Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C) transactions, Lelong.com.my is now moving to becoming a channel for Business-to-Consumer (B2C) relationships. Many distributors have realised the power of using the auction system and are now using the site to trade and grow their business as well.

Why Lelong.com.my is so successful? Many of us have lots of items lying around the house that are not currently in use; whether second hand or new items that we have not gotten around to disposing of. This is a major compelling factor that has brought many users to Lelong.com.my. The track record for selling items is extremely good. Approximately 70% of all items posted for auction on the site are sold. Hence, users stand a good chance of obtaining a successful transaction. The interface is very user-friendly and easy to use. At a glance, most users get the hang of the system. In addition, they do focus heavily on customer support and in the event of any problems or queries arising, any e-mails / phone calls directed to them are responded to almost instantaneously. Problems that arise can also be posted in the forum and many users play a major role in replying and helping out others.

In a nutshell, lelong.com.my is a virtual portal to provide Malaysian consumers with convenience in online Internet auction and trading.

*Add-on:

Color/Font: Rich in use of colors and the font is easy to read.

Selection navigation: The drop down menu is too long. Selections in the form of buttons and links should prove to be much more effective.

Download speed: The bandwidth is adequate even for peak hours during surfing.

Site Design & Layout: The site is cheerful and the layout is user-friendly.

Available of Search engine: There is a search engine. However, the advanced searching is not available although crucial in searching for specific key words of an item.

Shopping cart: No shopping cart, a main drawback for any online purchases. E-shoppers will need to go through the entire process if he/she wants to purchase more than 1 items.

Cash-out feature: N/A

Credit Card Debts : Causes and Preventation

What is credit card debt?

Anyone own credit card ?

How many credit card do you have?

What credit card means to you?

If you have credit card, then credit card debts will sound familiar to you and you hate the most.

Credit card debts is an example of unsecured consumer debt which acessed through credit cards. Debts results when a client of credit card company purchases an item or sevices through credit card. Then, consumer's debt accumulates and increases with its interest and penalties will be charged when they do not pay the company for the money he or she has spent and bank will report the late payment to credit rating agencies in the book of "blacklist" customer. In addition the late payment penalties itself also increase the amount of debt the consumer has. So how "bad" of using credit card are?

There are few causes of credit card debt:

1.Swipe without thinking and unaware of the risks.

This is the general consensus of consumer groups on the alarming number of cerdit card users below the age of 30 who were blaklisted and later declared brankrupt due to fail on paying their credit card debts.

2.Poor money management skills

Monthly spending plan is essential. Card debts keep on increase day by day because of users without any idea where their money spending on those unnecessarily each month and end up having to charge purchases on which they spent.

3.Saving too little or no.

Normally ,youngest generation are least saving their money in bank where they like to spent almost 70% to 80% of their salary to clothing, food and beverage , car and electronic product. They are lack of the importance saving concept and not border that savings cushion in place will not cause immediate financial strain and increase debt.

4. Buy whatever you want now. Able to pay it off later in "maybe" terms.

For those credit card holders their hands are itchy and every new product that put in on shelves they will like to have one. It seems like those new products (eg.shiny HDTVand luxuries bag) are keep on calling their name to buy them. In result they cannot stand for the seduce and buy it and enjoy the debt painfully for the rest of the entire month.

5. Spending is your comfort activity.

Nowadays lot of people having their rough day, week or month either in workplace or home. Then they will try to make their feeling more happy by buying things on that moment. Sometimes it will causes them overspending of their budget and their life become more bitter and regret feelings rise when they receive the bank statement.

How to avoid credit card debt?

1. Manage your finances

Determine your monthly income and needed expenses by starting with a strategy where establish out a budget and then follow that budget exactly which will help you keep on track before you pull out the credit card for futher spending.

2. Shop for the right card.

It is very important for everyone to really gather around and get a credit card personalized for tour particular situation where try to getting one with no or very low fees and low interest. So, take your time and effort to compare different offers, but with the high saturation of the market which perfect fit for your wallet.

3.Know our credit card interest rate

If we going to use credit card in future while cant 100% gurantee that we will pay the balance in full of each month. Then we are strictly recommend to know the interest rate that charge to us due to late payment. In addition, check the rate of our monthly staements because credit card issuers can raise uor rates for a little or no apparent reason.

4.Pay on time.

Never even ever to make a late payment to anyone including car and house payments because penalties will be charged to every single overdue payment inreult it will increase the money that you owe from credit card company.

5.Use it like cash , not only card.

We must aware that everytime swipe our credit card it looks and feels the same for every single transaction because we treat it as card not money. So, we cannot physically feel our charges climbing higher and higher. Thus,we need to imagine every time we pull out the card as thickness of cashbut with each purchase we feels it become lesser and lesser.

Credit card owner should always remember " Preventation is better than cure".

The Application of Pre-paid Cash Card for Consumer

Nowadays, people can limit their spending with their pre-paid cash card that load funds onto the card and use the money. A prepaid cash card allows consumers to purchase something even when they don’t have the cash to pay for it.

Basically, a pre-paid cash card looks like a credit or debit card, and gives users the ability to purchase products and services with a card but with a crucial difference - users can only spend the balance that has been preloaded onto their card.There is no risk of running into debt as it has no credit or overdraft facility.

The application of pre-paid cash card for consumers :-

• Making hotel reservation
  
• Topping up your mobile phone
• Bill payment and online purchase
  
• Transferring money to friends and family
  
• Withdrawing cash from an ATM
• Petrol filling
  

These numerous benefits of pre-paid cash card :-

• Availability - No credit checks, which means users can get a card without worrying about their credit history. All prepaid card providers will carry out an Identity check to confirm users are who users say they are.

• No debt risk - There is no chance of spending too much as users are limited to the amount that users load funds onto their cards.

• Security feature - Pre-paid cash card holders are protected against theft and fraud by Personal Identification Numbers (PIN). Pre-paid cash cards are safer if comparing to carrying cash because cash cards can prevent cash being stolen or lost.

• The card for travel - As well as being able to top up the card, depending on the specific provider, users will be able to use it at ATMs worldwide. Many providers now offer dollar and euro cards and offer a better exchange rate on their travel cards. Other than that, prepaid cash cards offer a good alternative to travelers' cheques.

The several types of pre-paid cash card :-

Touch n Go (Malaysia)
(TnG) smart card is used by Malaysian for electronic payment system to toll expressway and highway. It is expanding its business to retail purchase by starting with fast food industry that enables consumers to buy burgers or fast-food from 21 outlets such as Burger King, 7-Eleven, Dunkin’ Donut. Besides that, card holders can use their prepaid cash cards pay parking fee before they are entering the shopping malls such as Midvalley, Sunway Pyramid and etc.

Octopus (Hong Kong)
It is an electronic system that makes traveling, dining and shopping in Hong Kong simple and hassle-free. Each Octopus contains a built-in microchip containing all users payment information. Just with a simple 'touch and go' of the Octopus cash card at a processing machine, the system automatically deducts the correct amount. There is no longer a need to carry coins.


EZ-Link (Singapore)
A system is similar to the Octopus Card in Hong Kong and Touch n Go in Malaysia.

The EZ-Link card is a contactless smart card based on the Sony Felica smartcard technology and used for the payment of public transportation fees in Singapore such as Mass-Rapid Transit (MRT), Light Rail Transit (LRT) and public bus services, with limited use in the small payments retail sector. EZ-Link cards being used for payments in Singapore branches of McDonald's. Some schools in Singapore have also started to adopt the EZ-Link card as a way to mark the attendance of students and to pay for food served within the school campus.


There is no interest change, late fees or over limit free for the pre-paid cash card. Nowadays, many consumers bankrupt because of bad debt of credit cards. Pre-paid cash cards are different with credit cards. It will control the limit while credit cards is uncontrollable. So, most of consumers choose to apply pre-paid cash cards rather than credit cards because it is safe and easy to use.

References:
Retrieved from http://www.moneysupermarket.com/c/prepaid-cards/guide/1/ on 1 July 2009
Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EZ-Link on 1 July 2009
Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octopus_Card on 1 July 2009

Electronic Currency

What is electronic currency?
Electronic currency also known as e-money, electronic cash, digital money, digital cash or digital currency. Electronic currency refers to money or scrip which is exchanged only electronically. Typically, this involves use of computer networks, the internet and digital stored value systems.

ClickandBuy
ClickandBuy is one of the leading payment systems on the internet. For 8 years, their innovative Internet payment and billing system has been one of the established market leaders in Europe and now they are expanding worldwide. ClickandBuy makes it easy to buy and sell online. More than 14,000 merchants benefit from this complete service in 26 countries, which includes 126 different currencies and 46 different payment methods. ClickandBuy is used by Apple iTunes, Skype, msn, T-Online, Electronic Arts, Meetic, Playboy, SanDisk, Yamaha, UNICEF and many more. You just registered and you can simply and securely buy from them.

ClickandBuy’s system offers customers the possibility to make safe and convenient purchases of Internet content and services. ClickandBuy can provide secure, fast and easy payments with all the major international payment and billing methods. Buyers benefit from:

-One-time free online registration

-Secure payment

-Immediate access to paid content with more than 14,000 merchants

-Convenient payment through direct debit, credit card, invoice or prepaid account

-Overview of purchases made in real time

-Transparency and cost control in your personal account management

-An up-to-date overview of open transactions, current subscriptions and invoices

-Good customer service

Security is the top priority of ClickandBuy. All processes meet the requirements for data protection. ClickandBuy places great value on the security of transactions. The security of the ClickandBuy system is multiply redundant and is housed in a high-security computer center. Personal data are handled with high confidentiality. Third parties cannot gain access to it. Customers have access to their data using the user name and password they chose. Everything is guaranteed through 24-hour monitoring by network specialists. ClickandBuy using SSL technology to encrypt all data transferred in both directions between you and us over the Internet.

ClickandBuy allows transparency of your information. ClickandBuy summarizes the following information when you pay for something using ClickandBuy: The merchant from whom you buy; a description of the content/service; price; date, time and length of time you are authorized to have access. They use this information to make a record available for your invoice (which lists all purchases you have made). You can see your up-to-date, password-protected ClickandBuy billing history at any time in ”My Account”.

There are some companies also provide Internet payment and billing system such as PayLoadz, Paystone technologies, Peppercoin, and Digicash. You can refer their related websites at below to know more about them.

Related websites:
https://www.payloadz.com/
http://www.techvibes.com/company-directory/paystone-technologies-corp
http://www.rsa.com/press_release.aspx?id=3323
http://www.peppercoin.com/
http://www.digicash.com/

A Review on a post on e-tailing from My E-Commerce blog

Sarawak handicraft to go for e-commerce – Posted on 31st July 2009.

Sarawak government is strongly urging the local handicraft industry players to venture into the online business. By doing so, through E-commerce, vendors will be able to market their handicraft products on a global scale and at the same time increase Sarawak’s handicraft industry more competitively. This proves to be easier said than done.
As a start, industry players are encouraged to utilize the one-stop e-handicraft mall set up by Sarawak Craft Council. The website, www.right.sarawak.gov.my/Rightmart, will be the gateway for the handicraft industry players to showcase their products and designs online. However, traditional vendors without adequate knowledge in operating a computer will find it difficult to even post the image of their merchandise for sale online.
In addition, there is also a main setback that many fail to take into consideration if all handicrafts were to go for e-commerce. Handicrafts are typically one of the main attractions of many place of interest in Malaysia. For example, Kelantan, Terrenganu, Pulau Pangkor, Kedah, and etc. Expatiates visiting Malaysia are often attracted to such places due to the richness and uniqueness of these handicrafts, often hand-made by the locals for extra income. Thus, if handicrafts were to be made available online, a negative impact will be imprinted on the tourism industry.
In conclusion, all aspects on e-tailing handicrafts has to be taken into consideration before its full scale implementation simply because tourism industry in Malaysia generates RM49.56 billion (US$13.76 billion) in 2008 and the Government will definitely be discontented if the figures were to drop due to incompetence and negligence in implementing e-tailing.

How to safeguard our personal and financial data.

Why we need to safeguard our personal and financial data while online?

The advanced of technology build up the second world of us today. It create conveniences and efficient. People can do his or her purchase transaction of items online without step out their house. Everything can be done at home where just by internet. The only thing we can do is just registered our personal data on the onlineshop website, e-banking website and they gurantee that our data are safe and privacy.

Is it real? Our personal and financial data are 100% safe with them. What your opinion? Emm.. Do you receive junkmail before in your mailbox? 9 out of 10 people will say yes where they found some "nonsense" email which send from XXX company which they start to think did I give or write my e-mail address to them before. If not how they get our email address and even know our name correctly (personal data).

Once again, its prove that internet is not a safe place where millions of computer are connected and the data transfering on sending back and forth through different server on a same time. So, the signifiant increasing numbers of crimes on stealing personal and financial data from third party by using the advanced of technology.Thus, it is dangerous that for every users to disclose some of his personal data in internet with available software in market to prevent hackers to intercept and use those privacy information act as you and use it to purchase things.

So, How can we prevent of being one of the victim ?

1. Secure your mailbox.
Remove incoming mail promptly.Avoid putting bill payments in your mailbox for pickup by a postal carrier ,unless it is unlocked box, drop outgoing payments in Postal Servcies collection boxes.

2. Share your personal information cautiously
Users must cautious on sharing or listing out their privacy personal data including social security numbers, driver's license number and credit card numbers. Don't give out information unless you know the pary with whomyou are dealing with.

3.Review your credit card report and correct any errors.
Do it again each month and year as you receive the bank billing statement with yours receipts to make sure you have not been billed for fraudulent purchasas. If spot any suspicious transactions or charges or duplicated charges where unknown .Then, pleace contact the bank immediately.

4. Store card receipts and other important documents in a safe place.
All those documents including cancelled checks, new checks and account statements should keep properly and not simply throw out. Users need to shred it first before they throw it out. Also shred offers for preapproved credit cards before discarding them.

5.Strong password.
Users should not reveal any passwordthat related our personal and financial data to the other party simply and easily. Users should remembers their own password while log in in any online website and log off while they leave to prevent the other party steal it. Avoid using passwordsthat are easily to guess such as your name , nric number, date of birth, your mother or father name and others. Password that you set please never ever write it down on the paper and out inside in your wallet or beg because it might be steal by theft then they will get your password easily.

6.Use own computer.
When you key in any private information included personal and financial data please doit on your own computer and at home. This is the most safety place instead of work or public maachine to prevent any chances of your own data explode out.

7.Resits using free wireless connections particulary in cybercafes, airports and other public place to check peersonal information.

8. Purchase and use the updated antivirus and antispyware software to get an extra protection.
Remember anything will happen in anytime so what we can do is just prevent by some software to reduce the chances of our personal and financial data fade out.

The threat of online security: How safe is our data?

How safe is our data?

There are several ways to lost our data such as stolen laptops, lost CD or pen drive and systems hacking which contain personal particular of some organisation's employees may expose them to the risk of identity theft. Many organizations have experience of cyber attacks from inside and outside of the organization, even country. The financial losses from cyber attack can be substantial.

For example, there is a case happened on April 2007 at Georgia, where a company lost a CD. The company was hired to handle information by the Georgia Department of Community Health. The CD consists of 2.9 million Georgia residents' data such as names, social security numbers, addresses and members identification for recipients of Medicaid and other medical programme. Those data was not encrypted, therefore potential identity abuse may arise.

Another case happened on September 2006 at Ohio. Hackers broke into the systems of an Ohio hospital and steal personal data of 230,000 patients and their family members plus the financial information of 12,000 donors. It happened when the hospital was upgrading its systems.

How to protect our data?

There are many ways to protect our data, such as:

1) Access control mechanism - Mechanism that limits the actions that can be performed by an authenticated person or group.

2) Passive tokens - Storage devices (e.g. magnetic strips) used in a two-factor autheutication system that contain a secret code.

3) Active tokens - Small, stand-alone electronic devices in a two factor authectication system that generate one-time passwords.

4) Encryption - The process of scrambling (encrypting) a message in such a way that it is difficult, expensive, or time-consuming for an unauthorized person to unscramble (decrypt) it. Encryption helps to secure stored information and information transmission.

Phishing: Examples and its prevention methods

What is Phishing?
It is an form of criminal activity and fraudulent attempt, which usually made through email to steal people personal information and acquire sensitive information such as passwords and credit card details by pretending as a trustworthy person or a business in an electronic communication.

Those phishing emails usually appear to come from some well-known organizations such as banks, ebay and etc, Besides that, phishing emails ask for personal and sensitive information-credit card number, social security number, account number and even passwords also. Usually, phishing emails appear to come from those sites, services, companies or organizations which they do not even have accounts. Moreover, phishing emails always tell people to click a link that is a site to request people to fill in or updated their personal information.

What are the signs of Phishing?
(1) Requests for personal information- Legitimate companies would NEVER REQUEST personal information, especially not a company or an organization such as bank or credit card company which should already have those personal information.

(2) Mistakes- Little things that can often reveal the biggest clues. Most mistakes in grammers, slip up on the finer details and so on.

(3) Addressed as "Customer"- Phishers want to save time, they use generic names like "Dear Valued Customer", so that they do not have to type all recipients' name out and send one-by-one. For example, if your bank, regularly addresses your name in.


(4) "Verify your account"- A legitimate business would not request their customers' passwords, logon names, Social Security numbers and other sensitive information through emails. If receive these kind of emails, do not response. It is a phishing scam.

(5) "Click the link below to gain access to your account"- HTML formatted messages can contain links or forms that people can fill out just as people would fill out on a Website. The link that people urge to click may contain all or part of a real company's name but the link is actually taking people to a sham Website.

(6) Uniform Resource Locator (URL)- Phishers sightly altered by intentionally adding, omitting or transposing letters. For example, the URL "www.microsoft.com" could instead as:

(a) www.micosoft.com
(b) www.mircosoft.com
(c) www.verify-microsoft.com

How to prevent?
(1) Change the passwords on all the accounts- Use a strong password that at least eight characters long, includes letters, numbers and symbols, easy for users to remember but hard for othersto guess. Avoid the name and words in any dictionary, important dates and so on. Protect passwords and change them regularly.

(2) Report the incident- Contact the credit card company or bank if those personal information already given out. Report or send the phishing emails to them so it is easier for them to protect their customers.

(3) Separate email address for different usage- For example, one for financial transaction, one for trusted friends and families and one for public or general use. So, have to do everything well to keep the address for financial transaction purpose as private as possible.

(4) Improve Computer's Security- Phishers hope users have not been applying the latest fixes and try to take advantage of those vulnerabilies. Better use a firewall and anti-phishing software such as Kaspersky Internet Security, Norton 360 and so on. Besides that, Web Browsers like Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox 2.0 come with the anti-phishing functions.



Video Sharing to clarify on Phishing Scams in Plain English

REMEMBER!! Legitimate organizations would NEVER REQUEST personal information through emails.

Reference:

Retrieved from http://www.phishtank.com/what_is_phishing.php on 23 June 2009
Retrieved from http://onecare.live.com/site/en-us/article/phishing_prevent.htm on 23 June 2009
Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqRZGhiHGxg&feature=fvw on 23 June 2009