Protect yourself from COVID-19 scams
Canadian Shield offers a safe way to guard against online fraud
The COVID-19 pandemic and all of its associated tragedy and inconvenience is a continuing bad news story. However, as people have become more dependent on their computers and mobile devices while staying at home, the situation has presented new and lucrative opportunities for internet fraudsters.
The Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre (antifraudcentre-centreantifraude.ca) lists numerous exploits used to defraud Canadians and the Canadian Network for the Prevention of Elder Abuse has produced an informative summary of the top 10 COVID-19 frauds and scams used to entrap vulnerable seniors (https://tinyurl.com/ybucqp9f ).
The usual online methods for bilking unsuspecting victims have taken on aspects relating directly to the pandemic. Phishing emails may claim the recipient will be receiving a government benefit or the email may be soliciting donations for front line health workers. In each case, clicking on a link in the email will take you to a fake government or charity website where personal banking information is to be entered.
Other emails may be selling personal protective items at very low prices and will solicit credit card information at a bogus retail site. On a more sinister note, some spam email will take you to a site which will install ransomware or other malicious software.
Experienced users of the internet know how to recognize scam and phishing emails and simply hit the delete button and move on. But children or seniors in your family may be tricked into falling for one of the numerous frauds circulating on the internet.
Anti-virus software can be a mandatory first line of defence, but may not be effective in stopping you or a vulnerable person from falling for a phishing or scam email.
That’s where Canadian Shield, provided by the nonprofit Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA), can come to the rescue.
To understand how Canadian Shield works you need to know how a domain name system (DNS) works. You remember websites by their names, such as Facebook, but a website is actually identified by a long number that would be too difficult for anyone to quickly recall.
A DNS server is akin to a gigantic telephone directory of the internet. When you type an address into the location bar or click on a link the computer sends the request to a DNS server which looks up the name of the website and converts it to the numbers that a computer or network can understand.
The company that supplies you with internet service chose the DNS server you use but you can switch servers if you want. CIRA’s Canadian Shield is a DNS server and it can protect someone by blocking their computer from connecting to websites which are known to be fraudulent or dangerous, and about 100,000 new malevolent or bogus websites are added to the list every day. CIRA’s servers are also located in Canada which is important.
Unlike many other DNS companies, CIRA does not record your internet activity or sell it to third parties in other countries to use for advertising or tracking. It’s a free service and you do not need to register.
There are several ways to activate the protection of Canadian Shield. You can change the DNS settings on your computer, install the app on an Apple or Android mobile device, or change the DNS settings on your wireless router to protect every device using your home’s Wi-Fi. The three levels of protection include a “family” setting to block pornographic sites as well.
The Canadian Shield site has full instructions for setting up the service (cira.ca/cybersecurity-services/canadianshield#setupinstructions).
It was pretty simple to install the app on a mobile device although I found a glitch in the Windows instructions which say to click the “start” button, select “control panel,” and then “network connections.” However, you can’t get to the control panel this way. Either click on the start button and then type “control panel,” or right click on the start button and select network connections.
Canadian Shield may be an excellent way to protect you or your whole family from malicious websites.