Where to Report Spam, Scams, & Hackers

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Potential ID Theft:  If you believe you have mistakenly given your personal information to a fraudster, file a complaint at www.ftc.gov/complaint, and then visit the Federal Trade Commission's Identity Theft website at ftc.gov/idtheft to learn how to minimize your risk of damage from a potential theft of your identity.

A Hacker:  Your ISP and the hacker's ISP (if you can tell what it is). You can usually find an ISP's email address on its website. Include information on the incident from your firewall's log file. By alerting the ISP to the problem on its system, you can help it prevent similar problems in the future. Also report them with the FBI at www.ic3.gov. To fight computer criminals, they need to hear from you.

A Scammer:  If a scammer takes advantage of you through an internet auction, when you're shopping online, or in any other way, report it to the Federal Trade Commission, at www.ftc.gov/complaint. The FTC enters internet, identity theft, and other fraud-related complaints into Consumer Sentinel, a secure, online database available to hundreds of civil and criminal law enforcement agencies in the U.S. and abroad.

A Spammer:  If you get deceptive spam, including email phishing for your information, forward it to . Be sure to include the full header of the email, including all routing information.

Phishing:  Report phishing email to . The Anti-Phishing Working Group, a consortium of ISPs, security vendors, financial institutions and law enforcement agencies, uses these reports to fight phishing.

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"7 Practices for Computer Security." OnGuard Online. Federal Trade Commission. Web. 19 June 2010. .