Credit, debit card frauds and how you can avoid them

On 19 October, the country woke up to a banking nightmare. The State Bank of India (SBI) blocked 6 lakh debit cards after a reported malware-related breach in a non-SBI ATM network. In what is possibly India’s largest financial data breach, nearly 32 lakh debit cards across 19 banks, including HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and Axis Bank, were compromised. As per the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), 90 ATMs were impacted and at least 641 customers lost Rs 1.3 crore in fraudulent transactions.

Even as the council of Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS), an international body that sets data security standards, has ordered a forensic audit, banks have advised their customers to change PINs and confine themselves to own bank ATMs. The customers, meanwhile, are worried about how secure their debit and credit cards really are.

It’s a justified concern, considering that nearly 2.59 crore credit cards issued by 56 banks had a transaction worth Rs 24,341 crore via points of sale (POS) and Rs 202 crore through ATMs, while 69.72 crore debit cards registered transactions worth Rs 2.19 lakh crore through ATMs and Rs 17,100 crore via POS in July 2016. This is a fortune that fraudsters are waiting to tap into through several, ready loopholes. “Banks are definitely revisiting their network security by applying additional layers of security to prevent any compromise,” says Rajiv Anand, Executive Director, Axis Bank.

Even as the RBI and banks are trying to stay one step ahead by introducing several security features, including chip-based cards and two-factor authentication, customers need to take the initiative to prevent being conned. We list here the various ways that cards, credit and debit, can be used to commit fraud and steps you can take to steer clear of these.

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Everipedia: The Wikipedia Competitor for the People

At a time when Internet censorship has turned into a perceived #WAR against certain groups of people, a new hero has seemingly emerged as a siren for the masses. Everipedia, also known as “Thug Wikipedia” to the insiders–which includes everyone by design–is the unannounced, and impossible to ignore, lovechild of the popular online encyclopedia and Facebook.

Breitbart News sat down for an exclusive interview with Everipedia co-founders Sam Kazemian, known by his friends as “the Persian Zuck,” and Mahbod Moghadam, previously of Genius, to discuss their startup and how it’s single-handedly seeking to revolutionize the concept of “knowledge aggregation,” one individual page at a time.

“Everything that Wikipedia thinks is not cool, we think is cool. And the site is blowing up because it has so many pages now,” Sam, 22, told Breitbart News. “It’s so scary that Wikipedia was built in 1999 and it’s the seventh biggest site on the Internet,” Mahbod, 33, added. “But this still really needs to get updated.” Mahbod insists Everipedia is an extension of the popular online information catalogue, wittily referring to it as “Uber for Wikipedia,” although the startup’s growing popularity among the masses could wind up turning the tides.

Unlike Wikipedia, Everipedia allows anyone to create a page about any individual person, any organization, or any thing. Creating an Everipedia page is as simple as pasting a URL into the site’s search bar which automatically populates the information into it. Mahbod said he even created an Everipedia page for his mom: “I had to make one for her. Otherwise, she would kick my ass.”

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The 20 best online master's programs for engineers

When you consider how expensive and time-intensive graduate degrees can be, online programs are a great way to continue working while you study at times that are more convenient to your schedule.

Especially for engineers, whose jobs sometimes require long hours and trips to manufacturing plants or construction sites, "distance learning" can keep you competitive in your field.

U.S. News & World Report recently published its 2016 list of the best online graduate engineering programs by looking at student engagement, faculty credentials and training, student services and technology, peer reputation, and admissions selectivity.

Find out them

Interesting articles to read -- 24-09-2012

Interesting articles to read -- 24-09-2012

Can Crowdsourcing Bring Unused Patents Back from the Dead?University patents often sit there on the shelf. One startup thinks crowdsourcing could revive them. Read

Putting quality back into education. By P.V.Indiresan, Former Director of IITM Read

Nurturing the family: TVS group has never faced a labour problem Read

Click & Mortar: Web stores get popular - Tips to set up your business online Read

The Real Leadership Lessons of Steve Jobs (HBR article) Read

Music Therapy: An Ultimate Remedy for Many Diseases Read

Archives

12 Leading Payment Services for Your Online Business

12 Leading Payment Services for Your Online Business

In this article, we take a look at some of the leading online payment services that you can integrate to your website to receive payments from your customers and clients.

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Checking in Hotel Web Design: 50 Cosy Hotel Websites and Trends

Hotels go to great lengths to provide the perfect ambiance and atmosphere for their customers. However, most hotels overlook the importance of having an accessible website that serves as an alternative gateway to draw customers’ interest in staying at their hotel.

Hotels mostly cater to an international crowd. Other than the frequent business executives who practically live in hotels most of the year, majority of their clientele have never stayed at their hotel before. The only thing these hotels can do to attract online customers to make a reservation with them is to ensure that they have offer an online booking experience that differs from the others in a positive way.

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8 FREE Online Computer Science Courses for Beginners and Advances Users

Many people want to learn computer science, but not many can afford to do so at the best institutions. Fortunately many of the best institutions in the world are opening up their courses so you can take a course from Stanford, MIT or Harvard simply by going online and learning at your own pace. Here are 8 ways you can take advantage of this.

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Info-graphics: How Internet users worldwide spend time online

Thirty percent of the world’s population spends time online.

That may not seem like a large percentage, but it represents 2,095,006,005 people who spend a cumulative 35 billion hours online each month. That’s equivalent to 3,995,444 years, an infographic from Go-Gulf.com says.

What does everyone do during all that time?

The average Internet user spends most of his time online on social media (22 percent), search (21 percent), reading content (20 percent), and email (19 percent).

Internet users visit Google more than any other website, but spend more time on Facebook than anywhere else.

Here are a few more interesting facts about the world’s online habits:

-- People search more than 1 billion queries on Google per day.
-- Location-based services are the fastest growing Internet trend.
-- The United Kingdom has the highest online population. The United States ranks fifth.
-- More than 56 percent of social media users use social networks to spy on their significant others.

Check out the graphic for more:

Online Resources for Businesses

The Internet is full of resources that can help you grow your business, find new customers and learn new sales techniques, but it can be difficult to find them. Where do you look for top quality business resources online and how do you avoid the junk?

While you can find plenty of business resources online, it can be difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff. There are a lot of useless websites out there claiming to be resources, but they are more a waste of your time than anything else. However, you will find that there are a number of excellent websites that can help you with your small business.

If you know where to look, the number of resources available to you is impressive. Finding them is the tough part, so here are some of the best choices for those running their own business.

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Youth and Digital Media: From Credibility to Information Quality

Building upon a process- and context-oriented information quality framework, this paper seeks to map and explore what we know about the ways in which young users of age 18 and under search for information online, how they evaluate information, and how their related practices of content creation, levels of new literacies, general digital media usage, and social patterns affect these activities.

A review of selected literature at the intersection of digital media, youth, and information quality—primarily works from library and information science, sociology, education, and selected ethnographic studies— reveals patterns in youth’s information-seeking behavior, but also highlights the importance of contextual and demographic factors both for search and evaluation.

Looking at the phenomenon from an information-learning and educational perspective, the literature shows that youth develop competencies for personal goals that sometimes do not transfer to school, and are sometimes not appropriate for school. Thus far, educational initiatives to educate youth about search, evaluation, or
creation have depended greatly on the local circumstances for their success or failure.

Access this 150 pages research publication

The Definitive Guide To Selling More Of Anything Online:

The web has done wonders for shrinking sales and marketing budgets. But we are a long way from getting the most out our e-commerce efforts. What follows will help.

Step 1. Choose Effective Keywords
Step 2. Load Up Google Adwords
Step 3. Decide How Much You Want To Pay For Placement
Step 4. Hone Your Calculations
Step 5. Track Your Results To Keep Costs Down
Step 6. Write Guest Posts On Blogs And Websites
Step 7. Set Up Reciprocal Content-Sharing Relationships
Step 8. Buy An Online Ad (But Be Smart About It)
Step 9. Keep Visitors Engaged
Step 10. Bring On Affiliate Selling Partners
Step 11. Test, Test, Test

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40 essential online apps for freelancers

From the Bad Language Blog by Matthew Stibbe

Online applications give me a competitive edge. I want to be a ‘big little company’ with the same (or better) IT capabilities as the biggest of my clients. I try to make the maximum use of online applications because they let me deploy new capabilities quickly without adding to my IT or admin burdens. This is a list of some of the best online applications that I am researching or which I use on a regular basis.

Explore the list