Imagine having the terrible experience of checking your e-gold account only to find that the money that was supposed to be there has been withdrawn and your balance is down to zero.
The only explanation for this is that somebody has hacked into your account and has withdrawn the money with the help of spyware software installed without your knowledge on your computer over the Internet.
And it gets even scarier. Actually this can happen to you even if your computer has the latest anti-virus and firewall software protection. Too many times, people with this kind of protection assume that all is well only to get the shock of their lives when their online e-gold accounts are cleaned out. Always remember that anti-virus software and even firewall is NOT enough to keep out hackers because it does not address their favorite tool of trade, namely spyware.
Spyware is a software that gets into your computer through the Internet and literally spies on your every activity. Forms of spyware vary and range from virtually harmless cookies that track you across the various websites you visit to the deadly keystroke loggers that record your passwords to various accounts including other extremely sensitive data. The information is then transmitted back to a special destination that the hacker has full access to. The rest is then very easy to do and within no time the victim finds that their e-gold account has been cleaned out.
The reason why e-gold is an especially popular target with hackers specializing in the withdrawal and transfer of funds is because many people do not access their e-gold accounts daily. The vast majority of account holders have very few transactions using e-gold, probably even one or two in a month.
There are four ways that spyware can get into your computer. It can ride with software that you have downloaded from the World Wide Web to install in your computer.
Secondly hackers can find an open port in your computer where they can virtually install anything over the net.
Thirdly spyware can arrive as part of an email attachment which automatically installs itself onto your computer the minute you open the email message in question.
Finally it can be installed physically by somebody with access to your computer.
To protect your e-gold account, you will need to get good anti-spyware software and then ensure that you update it regularly.
Another thing to do when in doubt is to never leave substantial e-gold funds hanging around in your account for long periods of time. Transfer them to a more secure account the minute you receive payment.
Understandably the whole idea with e-gold accounts is to keep your assets and accumulate them in an e-gold account to protect yourself from currency fluctuations. Good strong protection against spyware is therefore the most practical protection for e-gold account holders.
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