Often, people who are newly introduced to the Internet have certain misconceptions about deterrent measures against cybercrime. This could be due to their own limited knowledge or because they believe whatever their friends tell them. This not only hinders them from fully protecting themselves against threats but could also make a bad situation worse. Some main misconceptions have been listed and explained away below.

Spam can be curbed by clicking on the "unsubscribe” button in junk emails.

Wrong. Spam is meant to cause a nuisance to you, and this is not an easy way to escape from your spam problem. Unless the email you are receiving is some e-newsletter or a mailing list which you yourself have subscribed to, you should not use this “unsubscribe” feature found on some spam messages. Ironically, when you send an unsubscribe request, it will only serve to confirm the spammer’s suspicion that your email account is active. He will then bombard your email with more emails. Therefore, this will serve as no salvation for your spam problem.

Good anti-virus programs offer total protection from viruses.

This is not necessarily true. Even if you have excellent anti-virus software, you still need to regularly scan your computer for viruses. Also, you need to keep your software up-to-date to protect your computer from the latest virus threats, as many new malicious programmes are discovered everyday. It is only a matter of weeks before the latest software becomes defunct.

Anti-virus software is the answer to all your security problems.

Anti-virus software, although an essential security device, do not offer you ALL the protection. For example, anti-virus software recognizes only a small number of all known Trojans and is not specialized at detecting new Trojans. Therefore, you need to have a variety of security products like anti-spyware programs, anti-adware programs and firewalls to give you maximum security coverage.

Encrypted documents are completely safe from cybercriminals.

Not true. Although encryption does protect your sensitive information from unauthorized access, it is not guaranteed to stay that way forever. The perpetrator would still be able to decrypt your information, using a trial and error method known as “brute-forcing”, if your encryption key is not strong, or if your encryption software is not good enough. Therefore, encryption may offer only a temporary protection for the documents you wish to keep away from prying eyes. Refer to “Safeguarding data” section for more information in how you can effectively protect your sensitive documents.

Reference

Do Unsubscribe Links Stop Spam?
http://it.slashdot.org/it/04/12/15/1519257.shtml?tid=111&tid=1

Using Anti Virus Software by Matthew Ferrara
http://www.jconsult.com/virus/smex38help/WebRoot/at.htm

Trojan horse
http://www.sisp.net/malware.htm