A discussion on E-learning offered in Malaysia universities : Pros and Cons from the student perspective

E-learning is the modern process of education where part of the learning experience takes place without face to face communication between the teacher and his students. It is also known as distance learning. The most common method of e-learning is where the tutor or lecturer places several course modules on the university intranet, and students have free access to these materials as and when needed, as well as bulletin boards to keep them updated. E-learning was begun in the late 1980's in Malaysia. MARA University of Technology (UTM) is one of the universities that offering distance learning in 1990. In spite of all the hype surrounding online degree programs and e-learning, it is important to see this phenomenon for both its pros and cons.

Prons
E-learning provides accessibility to all students irrespective of their residence. E-classes help students to communicate with their tutors, get clarifications regarding their subjects and study
and access teaching materials through e-libraries.

Another advantage of e-learning is its time flexibility. One can get online resources, communicate with his tutor or class mates, send his query and write term paper at any time he can get access to the Internet. Students' interactions have become much easier than face-to-face communication.

Moreover, online students have the capability to study at their own pace. In a traditional setting, students need to finish their given assignments within a particular period of time, while through online education they can study whenever they are free. The online faculty assigns projects with a deadline and students can finish their projects at whatever time they find feasible within that particular deadline.


Cons
One of the biggest arguments about e-learning is that it makes students lazy and ineffective, due to being spoon fed by the educational institutions. With e-learning, most educational task is done either by the tutor or some sophisticated software, leaving students with the simple task of just downloading notes and reading them. Although this may make the learning process easier and more effective, it also runs the risk of creating dependent and lazy students. When these students graduate and enter the working class, they tend to expect all the information to be delivered to them, too. This time around, they may find that they need to aggressively seek information for themselves or be left behind fast. Since these students are so used to being spoon fed, they become cripples in the working environment, unable to move forward without constant help from others.

Furthermore, lack of face-to-face communication with teachers contributes lack of understanding between a student and a teacher. While a teacher cannot easily feel a student's demands, interests and motivations, a student can simply be lazy being non-motivated enough and having free time schedule for his e-learning. This may result a low scope of the student's knowledge and the teacher's accusation in lack of proficiency.

E-learning has become an integral part of this e-world and welcomes everybody who has willingness to learn and get higher education.

The following video shows the overview of e-learning

References:
http://www.articlealley.com/article_78603_45.html

Corporate Blogging: A new marketing communication tool for companies

Corporate blogging aimed to aid the organization by connecting to various type of user on the net. A corporate blog is used and published to reach its organizational goal.

Research has confirmed that social network and blogging are among the fastest tools to promote and brand a particular product, and is able to leave a recognizable image in majority of the user. It involves user participation from all level within the company as well as from the public.

One of the advantages of corporate blogging is to reach out to Internet user by getting them to explore and familiarize themselves with the products and services, and hopefully convert from interest to potential buyer or referral. With the entire major web browser supporting RSS technology, anyone who followed the blog could receive updates and read recent post on the blog without having to log in to the official site everyday.


There are a number of successful sites that utilizes the blog feature to keep their member updates and to attract more traffic through referral and blogging. Amazon Web Service Blog by Amazon.com would be the best example. Amazon helps to improve the communication and its customer services, attract more people to consume and discuss new products online. Besides, a blog allows viewer to leave comments where it could represent the public view on certain topic posted, participating in the corporate event or content, and even posting of suggestion and honest view on specific product or services.


Reference:
http://blogs.wsj.com/biztech/2008/06/30/most-corporate-blogs-are-unimaginative-failures/

http://money.cnn.com/2006/02/28/news/companies/pluggedin_fortune/index.htm

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

Information Technology (IT) has changed the way most business units in the private sector conduct their operations. IT is now seeping through to the public sector which is labeled more conservative compared to the private sector through e-Government initiatives. MSC is Malaysia’s initiative for the global information and communication technology (ICT) industry. The e-Government initiative was launched in Malaysia in the year 1997 by the former Malaysian Prime Minister, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad as one of the seven flagships of the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) initiative. It will improve both how the government operates internally as well as how it delivers services to the people of Malaysia. It seeks to improve the convenience, accessibility and quality of interactions with citizens and businesses; simultaneously, it will improve information flows and processes within government to improve the speed and quality of policy development, coordination and enforcement.

MyGovernment

There are seven pilot projects of the Electronic Government Flagship Application:

Project Monitoring System (SPP II)
Online system that monitors the entire lifecycle of national programs, i.e. from project application to approval to implementation, mid-term review and completion.

Objectives:

• To support and monitor entire lifecycle of Malaysia's 5-Year development program.
• To have a quality projects
• To provide a platform for exchanging ideas and demonstrating best practices models in project implementation.
• To have an effective decision making based on analysis/forecasting of project information and auto-alert on problem projects (eg. Budget overrun)

Human Resource Management Information System (HRMIS)
HRMIS is an integrated, technology-enabled Human Resource Management Information System for the Malaysian Public Service, incorporating Global Best Practices in HR that would enable the Public Service to successfully deal with the Challenges of the K-Economy.

Objectives:

• Effective staffing and right-sizing of civil service
• Up-to-date consolidated HR data for effective information planning
• Automate human resource managerial and operational processes
• Improve paperless HRM capabilities
• Open and flexible system
• Better communication, horizontal integration, streamlined processes and single window access.

Generic Office Environment (GOE)
Powerful document and office management solution that enables users to effectively and efficiently manage their office environment. It is fully web-based and has been customized based on local developed package, DRDok.

Obejctives:

• Efficient preparation and storage of documents
• Fast search and retrieval of documents
• Effective and productive collaboration and sharing of information
• Secure and traceable access to documents

Electronic Procurement (EP)
An electronic procurement system, which enables suppliers to sell goods and services to the Government through the Internet. Suppliers "open shop" on the World Wide Web (WWW), advertise their pricing, process orders and deliveries.

Objectives:

• Enables accountability and transparency.
• Creates more skilled and knowledgeable workforce.
• Equips the workforce with the latest technology at minimum cost.

Electronic Services (E-services)
A services provided by the government to enable the citizens to make payment thru Internet services, reducing the time and increase the efficiency of the entire progress. For example, e-filling provided by Malaysia's Inland Revenue Board (IRB), services provided by Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) and Telekom Malaysia Berhad (TM) through various convenient channels such as the eServices kiosks and internet.


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.

Objectives:

• Enable an effective and integrated job matching process.
• Provide an effective center of labot market information and references.
• To improve mobilisation of the nation's human resources and to ensure that manpower utilisation is optimized.

E-syariah
E-syariah is the seventh project under the Electronic Government flagship application of the MSC. A case management system that integrates the processes related to management of cases for the Syariah Courts.

Objectives:

• To improve the quality of services of the Syariah Courts
• To improve the effectiveness of JKSM (Jabatan Kehakiman Syariah Malaysia) in coordinating and supervising related agencies under its jurisdiction.
• To improve the productivity and efficiency of the management of the Syariah courts throughout the country.
• To upload the splendors of Islam through the use of ICT (Information of Communication and Technology)

Citizens Adoption Strategies

There are no doubt that the fast growing of E-Government is getting much more attention from the public. E-Government adoption requires that citizens show higher levels of satisfaction and security with the online service provided by the government. In order to achieve the objective, the designed websites should be made user-friendly. Everyone who uses it will find it easy to learn and sooner or later the importance of this service can be popular to the public. 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. Perceived risk refers to security and privacy issues of the Internet while perceived control is to ensure that citizens can transact online securely and their personal information will be kept confidential.

Lastly, the government should do more advertising through radio and tv, and organizing workshop in a strategic location in order to create awareness and convenience for problem solving as they are full-focus in providing the best services to its citizens.

References:
http://www.malaysia.gov.my/EN/Pages/default.aspx

http://www.malaysia.gov.my/EN/myBayar/Pages/OnlineLembahKlang.aspx

http://www1.american.edu/initeb/ym6974a/egovernment.htm#E-Government%20Overview

Review a local, transactional e-commerce site

E-commerce essentially covers all online activities aimed at inducing Internet users to purchase products and services online. However, has e-commerce really taken off in Malaysia?

On one hand, there are so many Malaysia citizens have bought airline tickets via Air Asia online system. On another, how many of you have really bought something else by online? You will roughly know the answer as you can ask the same question to those not so tech-savvy people. It does not reach the critical mass level yet but we cannot deny that there is some sort of growth in the local market, and these factors are pivotal in fulfilling the potential.

In Malaysia, there are quite a number of local e-commerce sites doing the online retailing transaction. Here I would like to introduce a local e-auction and online trading website which is Mudah.my

Mudah.my is a great and free way for you to post up your items for sale, whether it is your gadgets, furniture, property, car or even services that you offer. They’ll like your help to spread the word - so it is a great chance for you to let your readers know on an interesting service being offered, as well as earn through this sponsored post.


Mudah.my has a simple idea which is buy and sell basically everything for example cars, houses, mobile phones, and computers for sale in your region conveniently. This e-commerce site has established in Malaysia several years ago. Mudah.my allows the users to have online Internet auction and trading for various types of products or services such as electronic products, computer, services and so on- even the houses or cars. Beside that, you may find and getting a job as there are some job available and posting on that website. To give their users more convenient, Mudah.my has provided search engine in order to help the users easily find out the item they are interested in.

Furthermore, this e-commerce site also allows you to open your own “store”. The page loads fast and clutter free, unlike the complicated interface of eBay.com.my or the very user-unfriendly and advertisement-laden page of Lelong.com.my. Its major selling point is that it is completely free for buyers and sellers alike. You only need to fill in basic details, like the region where this advertisement is affected, emails, phone number, product detail and picture , etc. There is an option to hide your phone number as well to protect your privacy. After you upload the advertisement, it took less than 24 hours to activate. Once the ads are reviewed, the ads will then able to be displayed.


Of course, we can’t denied the fact that the potential for fraud of the online trading transaction is also higher as any person can advertise their wares in that website. An unsuspecting buyer could end up being victim to these online crooks. Therefore, basic common sense must still be applied when trading here, like meeting for a face-to-face before committing to a purchase, especially when a big amount of money is concerned.

Lastly, online trading can be good or bad, it is depending on how you use it efficiently.

The application of pre-paid cash card for consumers

What is pre-paid cash card? A pre-paid cash card looks like a credit or debit card, and it gives users the ability to purchase products and services with a card. However, there is a crucial difference which is you can only spend the balance that has been preloaded onto the card. This means there is no risk of running into debt as it has no credit or overdraft facility.

Prepaid cash cards have come to the financial rescue for millions of Americans who don't have a checking or savings account. Having a checking or savings account is better for Americans, because it gives them more options. More than 250,000 people don't have a checking or savings account, so they use a prepaid cash card.

Examples of pre-paid cash cards:
VISA Prepaid Cards

Visa Buxx
Offers teens spending independence and flexibility, while keeping parents informed, involved, and in control.




Visa Travel Money
It is an ideal alternative to travelers cheques and cash.




Visa Payroll
It is an innovative payment solution that helps businesses reduce payroll costs, increase efficiency, and build employee loyalty. It's the ideal alternative to traditional payroll checks.



Touch n Go
Touch n Go is a smart card 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 dough nut, burger or fast-food from 21 outlets such as Burger King, 7-Eleven, Dunkin’ Donut.



Octopus Card
It was launched in Hong Kong on year 1997, September. It is widely used in payment system for transportation, supermarkets, fast food restaurant, car parks and other pint of sale application such as service station s and vending machines that have achieved good outcomes.


Benefits of using pre-paid cash card:
You can always know exactly how much money you have to spend. The prepaid card can help protect you from over spending. It helps to eliminating debt risk by withdraw the chance to spend too much as the balance is limited to the amount reloaded, and the convenience that it provide is indeed great. It helps you pay your affiliates from around the world with our cash cards. and eliminate the need for checks. Last but not least, it works with any currency.

References:
http://www.moneysupermarket.com/cards/prepaid-cards-guide1.asp

http://usa.visa.com/personal/cards/prepaid/index.html

http://www.octopuscards.com/consumer/products/en/index.jsp

Credit Card debts: Causes and Prevention

Credit card is a card that can used repeatedly to purchase product and services on credit which issued by banks and financial institutions, credit cards provide us with the added security and ease when shopping and traveling .However, cost of living has increased today, It is often the case that your mailbox is filled with a number of credit card debt settlement notices, or you may be plagued by collection calls, and if such is the case with you then you must be having debts that you are finding difficult to pay off, and the problem has been going on for some time. Many people tend to misuse them and made the numbers of credit card debts until create the major problems of bankruptcies each year increase. Here, we have share some of the causes and prevention of the debt.


Causes:

• Less Income, More ExpensesAccording

Malaysia’s consumer price index, Malaysia inflation rate increase to 3% in April 2009, an increase in petrol and diesel prices leads to rise to higher transportation cost, this continuously make the prices of goods and services increase speedy. The going up expenses and not the income, contribute people forced to spend beyond their earnings. Customers who cannot possibly find an equilibrium between their expenses and their income, they will use credit card to purchase goods and services and unable to pay back the money, fall up to credit debts.

• Poor Money Management

One of the main reasons for debt in this country is lack of or poor money management skills, unaware to conduct a monthly spending plan some of these are balancing a checkbook, maintaining a good credit score, or managing credit. Without keeping this spending plan and bills, people will never realized how much their spending and how many income they can spend. Besides, people will keep on spending with using the future money to purchase some product that are useless and do not have value in their life, especially in the mega sales regardless of the reduced income. Thus, it has lead to a rise of credit card debts.

• Only pay the interest

The third factor that causes credit card debt is many credit card users only pay the interest and the minimum amount of principal when the debt is due, thus never fully repaying the entire sum. Debt accumulates and increases via interest and a penalty when the consumer does not pay the company for the money he or she has spent. Carrying a balance is very costly. Interest rates can be as high as 21% and by paying the minimum payment per month (usually about 2% of the balance) credit card companies are quite pleasure to loan you money for your purchases. Buying something such as a refrigerator on a standard credit card and paying the minimum payment can make that appliance very costly.

• Unemployment

Households are compel to use credit card for foodstuff, utilities and some expenses purposes to maintain current lifestyle when the main breadwinner of the household has lost his employment and could not find a new employment during short periods. This may lead to a mount up in debt when expenses are not minifying in line with the reduction in income.

• No money communication skills

It is important to communicate with your spouse or significant other and your children about your current financial health. Know what credit accounts you each have and promise each other to be honest about what each other spends. Keep the lines of communication open and discuss financial goals and spending styles, make them aware that if you cannot afford a certain item. Without the communication, many people find out that their spouses have racked up thousands of dollars in credit card debt and they had no idea that the accounts even existed.


Prevention Is Better Than Cure

• Control Spending and Save Up

People who using credit cards should learn how to have a better self control and discipline in order to learn not to overspend it. People can control themselves by limit their credits cards amount by stop them to use the money if they was expenses more than their budget. Besides, just purchase that item which is necessary only.

• Work out a budget

Have a good financial planning. Add up all your fixed and variable expenses for the month, and subtract that from your total monthly income. This will tell you how much money you have left over after paying your monthly bills. Figure out if you can afford to make more than minimum payments on your credit card debt, and if you can, do it. This will lower the amount of interest you pay over time.

• Choose the Right Card for You

This is one of the most important initial steps regarding your credit card use. Choosing the exact card serves you the entire well. Cards that have low or no fees at all and have interests that are low also, are the ones that are preferably appropriate especially to those who are only beginning to use credit cards.

• Always Pay on Time

Michael Killian, credit and debt management guide for About.com says never make a late payment to anyone including car and house payments. Because of the universal default clause in credit cards’ terms and conditions, credit card companies can raise your interest rate if you are late paying any creditor or even your utility company. People who can control their finances and manage their card payment schedules are the ones who rarely acquire credit card debt. In the conclusion, credit cards are not an evil, it still bring a lot of convenient to us and is a great budgeting tool if u used it wisely.

References:
http://www.3debtconsolidation.com/top10-causes.html

http://ezinearticles.com/?Credit-Card-Debt---Prevention-Is-Better-Than-Cure&id=226244

Electronic Currency

Currency is a unit used to exchange for transferring goods and services. Money acts as a medium of exchange in a trading market. As we live in a 21st century world nowadays, cashes and coins are no longer the only medium that used to exchange goods and services, a new development so called Electronic Currency ( also known as electronic money or electronic cash) which is the money used over internet that allowed a transaction being made through the computer networks, internet, and digital stored value system. Due to this new development, an online purchase is just a few clicks instead of going somewhere else.

There are two examples of electronic currency which are Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) and Direct Deposit. EFT is a system of transferring money from one bank account to another without any paper money changing hands. Funds are being transferred through an electronic terminal including credit cards and ATM. While, direct deposit is one of the most widely used program of EFT that used to make payroll payments by deposited directly into an employee’s bank account.


The benefits of using e-currency are:

Convenient and flexible
Through payment processor, a payment can be made in 24 hours from anywhere you are and have possibility to connect to internet. Thus, money can be sent and received all over the world. For example, log on to the web, browse thousands of selection and purchase the novel instead of walking into a book store to search and purchase the latest novel.

Low transaction costs
Trading electronic currency allows you to spend less money in fees and enables you to generate more profit.

Low minimum investment
Electronic currency trading does not demand huge amount of money and leave a decision for you whether to increase your investment amount. It creates opportunities to make profit without spending a lot in investment. Since electronic currency is the digital representation of currency and it has been widely used throughout the world and will replace the present monetary systems one day in future.

References:
http://www.romow.com/business-blog/benefits-of-e-currency-trading/

http://www.articlesbase.com/international-business-articles/ecurrency-pro-or-contra-732036.html

Mobile payment systems in Malaysia: Its potentials and consumers' adoption strategies

As the world keep move forward to global economy was resulted in fundamental changed in our live. In order to compete with others country, Malaysia was adopted a new payment service method, which called as mobile payment system. Its aims to changes the way of consumers buy and pay in Malaysia.

The first mobile payment system was launched at 21st November 2001. The other great news is the world's first contactless mobile payment service has been launched in Malaysia, according to Malaysian mobile operator Maxis Communications (Maxis), together with partners Nokia, Visa, Maybank and Touch ‘n Go. It is definitely a great opportunity for mobile payment system to growth successfully in Malaysia as rapidly increasing in number of Malaysian using their mobile phone for accessing information at their convenient.


M-payment (mobile payment) is a point-of-sale or transaction of money payment made through a mobile device, such as cellular telephone, Smartphone, personal digital assistant (PDA) or others devices. Instead of paying with cash, check or credit cards, and even physically present to merchant outlet, a consumer can use a mobile phone to pay for wide range of services and digital or physical goods.



There are few types of transaction can be made via mobile devices are premium SMS based transactions, direct mobile billing, mobile web payment (WAP) and Contactless Near Field communication. The most common transaction that used by Malaysia citizen is Premiun SMS transaction and WAP. Normally they use to download wallpaper, music, ringtones and mobile games by buying them through mobile payment.

Some of the examples of mobile payments available in Malaysia are mobileExec, mobile money, Maxis and Celcom which also launch with the same concept of making payment transactions through a mobile device.

Mobile Money International Sdn.Bhd, one of the examples of Mobile payment system in Malaysia, which implements the MM wallet and allows customers to send a payment request via an SMS text message with personal identification number (security pin) authorization. In another word, it provide greater freedom and convenient to consumers to purchase and payment by online.


Potentials
Mobile payment system's adoption in Malaysia has been seemingly increased throughout the years. This system is widely used in Malaysia due to the following advantages:

• It is convenient for consumer to carry out their transaction to anyone at everywhere, and any time. It provides greater freedom to the consumers.

• It is easy and more safety to operate. Consumers can top-up their phone credit or purchase digital goods and service via the mobile phone without carry out cash money to make transaction.

• Mobile payment system also assures the safety of data for the customer. A strong pin fraud protection patent that offers great security and inability of hacking passwords secures the payment.

• Such mobile services are enabling to work on any mobile devices. It helps to save consumer’s time and eliminates the hassle to queue up for bill payment at the counter. For example, booking cinema ticket.

Consumer’s adoption strategies:

• Promote more mobile payment system, and educate the consumers how to use its function properly and efficiently (e.g. bill payment, mobile purchase)

• Collaborate with more banks and companies to widen the ability to pay via mobile devices.

• Reduce the complexity of the mobile payment system.

• Company can give more reward to their customer at certain level of purchasing by using mobile payment system. For examples giving redemption or gift as reward to encourage them continue to use the services. Maxis is one of the good example.

• Enhance security and prevent the fraud happen. Build up customer confidence to the mobile payment system.

Throughout all this potentials, even this system is not very well established yet in Malaysia but it have a large market share to be grab on. It will continue to growth, as proper strategies are adopting and increasing in consumer’s confidence on mobile payment.

References:
http://www.neowave.com.my/mobilemoney_overview.asp

The application of third party certification programme in Malaysia

Third-party certification is use to provide a degree of conformity and satisfy customer demands. This assessment is investigated by an independent organization that is qualified and licensed to issue certification when the assessment is successfully completed. The most famous application of third party certification programme in Malaysia is provided by the MSC Trustgate.com Sdn Bhd.



MSC Trustgate.com was established in 1999 as a licensed Certification Authority (CA) in Malaysia under the Digital Signature Act 1997. It has been started to expand its service to other Asian countries. The objective of MSC Trustgate.com is to secure the open network communications from both locally and across the ASEAN region. Besides that, it offer complete security solutions and leading trust services that are needed by individuals, enterprises, government, and e-commerce service providers using digital certificates, digital signatures, encryption and decryption. The services provided by MSC Trustgate.com are SSL Certificate, Managed PKI, Personal ID, MyTRUST, MyKAD ID, SSL VPN, Managed Security Services, VeriSign Certified Training and Application Development. Furthermore, MSC Trustgate.com are also is an affiliate of VeriSign in the South East Asia region and a member of VeriSign Trust Network.

VeriSign is the leading Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Certificate Authority enabling secure e-commerce, communications, and interactions for Web sites, intranets, and extranets. Verisign help your consumers conveniently and securely log-in to their accounts to use your online services. Moreover, it is a two-factor authentication, self-learning fraud detection, and a powerful validation infrastructure helps provide a secure end-to-end solution at a reasonable cost from the most recognized trust brand on the Internet.


Digital Certificate In Your MyKad
MyKey is the MSC Trustgate.com Sdn. Bhd.'s Digital Certificate which is loaded into MyKad. It is governed by Malaysia’s Digital Signature Act 1997 and is accepted by the courts of law in Malaysia. It is class 2 certificate and has 1024-bit key length. When a document digitally signed with MyKey is treated as a legal binding document as it is with a handwritten signature. It provide highest protection for your data and transaction online with reliance limit for fraud protection coverage of up to RM25,000.

How to safeguard our personal and financial data?

Networks connecting millions of computers throughout the world. Computers play a very crucial role in our daily life, people are commonly relying on computers to create, store, and send data. Other than that, people also rely on internet financial services such as e-banking to make their financial transaction. Information stored was transmitted over the internet, flow from one server to another server, it creates a higher security risk since they are open to anyone. Hackers and identity thefts have now become very common and get involve in the world of internet. They have the ability to intercept the network system and collect all the confidential information. In response to this problem, here are some ways to keep your personal and financial data safe.

1) Shred old documents
Don’t leave privacy data in open for anyone to view. And don’t dispose of the confidential information in recycle containers unless the information being recycled has been shredded. Meanwhile, destroy all the information immediately when you no longer need it.

2) Usernames and passwords protection
This method is normally used to ensure security and to protect your access data such as limited third parties to access your file by setting up a password and view the access log to see the date and time that each user logged in. Besides, do not use passwords that are too simple, use a combination of numbers and letters as your passwords to provide greater security. Moreover, do not reuse a particular password. Different password for different account is highly recommended to avoid unauthorized access to your account.


3) Install and update antivirus software frequently
Antivirus software and firewall helps protect your computer from hackers who might try to delete, crash, or even steal your information or password. To avoid this problem, make sure your firewall is always turned on and keep your antivirus program regularly updated.

4) File encryption
Encoding your information that only allows the particular person with the correct password can see and use the information. It may prevent unauthorized person abuse some confidential data and can be quickly protected in your personal vault.

5) Avoid accessing private information in public
To be safe, private information should not be accessed or disclosed onto public computers. Use your personal computer or set a password protection and encryption on your computer instead to avoid identity theft and fraud on sensitive and personal data.

Related links:
http://www.hku.hk/cc/faq/pc/healthy-pc.htm

http://www.us-cert.gov/cas/tips/ST06-008.html

Phising: Examples and its prevention methods

Phishing is a broadly launched social engineering attack in which designed to theft the user electronic identity such as credit card numbers, username, passwords, account data, or other valuable information. In another word, phishing referred to as brand spoofing or carding, is a variation on ‘fishing’, users are lured to disclose confidential information to someone who pretends to be from the reliable source.

Phishing is the criminally fraudulent process by blast emails to a mass audience in their malicious attempt to bait the users to enter details at a fake website. Typically phishing message will appear to come from local financial institutions, paypal, ebay, and amazon , that the legitimate organization already has. They often include official-looking logos from real organizations and other identifying information taken directly from legitimate web sites.

How phishing work?

• The fraudulent email states that the users should update their personal information for one reason or another, and they usually provide a link that the users can click to do so. This all sounds reasonable and it may look legitimate, but phishing scams are anything but legitimate. The link provided does not take the users to that particular financial institution’s website. Instead, the users redirect to the perpetrator website that run by the scammers which is fake so that it looks similar to the original website.

• The phishing email usually will state that they can’t verify the users’ information or require the users to update their latest personal information or verify their account within 48 hours.

The following is examples of what a phishing scam e-mail message might look like:
1) Example phishing email from Maybank

2) Example phishing email from ebay

3) Example phishing website from CIMB

4) Example phishing website from mircosoft

Prevention Methods:

• Using anti-virus and anti-spyware software, as well as a firewall and spam filter.

Some phishing emails may contain danger software that can harm your computer or theft your identity information without your knowledge. By using anti-virus software and a firewall can protect your computer from inadvertently accepting or block such danger files. Remember keep update them regularly.

• Avoid clicking on links within emails that request for your personal information.

The scammers will use links to lure users to enter into fake Web sites that looks similar with real sites of the company they’re impersonating. The user’s confidential data will be theft if users follow the instructions and enter their private information on the Web site. Be aware of it and make sure the email is really sent and directly call from the company. In addition, users can directly go to that company’s legal web site, thus can prevent this type of fraud happen.

• Don’t email your personal or financial information.

Email is not a secure method of transmitting personal information especially high confidential and financial information. If you initiate a transaction and want to provide your personal or financial information through an organization’s website, look for lock icon on the browser’s status bar or a URL for a website and make sure that begins with “https:” The “s” refers to as “secure”. Do not proceed your transaction if it is not an “https” website.

• Do not click or enter your personal information in a pop-up screen, ignore it. Users should Install pop-up blocking software to help prevent this type of phishing attack.

Sometimes a phisher will really direct users to a real company’s, Web site, however an unauthorized pop-up screen created by the scammer will appear, with blanks in which require the users provide their personal information. It is such a way the scammer designing to lure the users to enter their private data without any suspension. The legal company normally won’t ask their customer to enter their information via the pop up screen. To prevent of this, user can install pop-up blocking software to help prevent this type of phishing attack.

• Users are suggested to use a strong password and keep changing it to avoid the unauthorized access to your account.

What you should do if you get hooked by a phishing scam?
Users can forward the phishing emails to spam@uce.gov and to the company, bank, or organization impersonated in the phishing email. Users also can report phishing email to MyCert. If you've been scammed, visit the Cyeber Security Malaysia website http://www.cybersecurity.my/en/