Are you prepare for cybercrime?

Sven

An article from Fidelity on cybersecurity, especially with do's and don't when one access with your financial accounts.

. Understanding the many forms of cybercrime may allow you to better defend yourself.
. Use 2-factor authentication for all online financial accounts.
. Maintain updated industry-standard operating systems and software.
. Do not use public Wi-Fi for your finances or other sensitive items.

Please share with the board if you have additional advices beyond tips offered above.

LewisBraham

Link, please.

Old_Joe

OK, here you go-
Link to Sven's article

Sven

@old_Joe, thank you.

Old_Joe

Yes sir. Happy to help.

WABAC

@sven: That article is the garden variety advice for beginners. But weak on how-to's.

I think they missed one obvious issue: Do you store bank card information at places where you regularly shop? Totalwine.com would love to store my bank card information to make life "easy" for me. Thanks. But not thanks. Typing is not that strenuous.

Do you know what sort of password is protecting the devices that connect you to the internet? Do you know what you are sharing over a home network?

Here's an article from Wired that gets deeper into what you need to do.

And here are your tax dollars at work providing you with good information. I note that some solid advice has not gone out of fashion:

Remove unnecessary services and software. Disable all unnecessary services to reduce the attack surface of your network and devices, including your router. Unused or unwanted services and software can create security holes on a device’s system, which could lead to an increased attack surface of your network environment. This is especially true with new computer systems on which vendors will often pre-install a large number of trial software and applications—referred to as “bloatware”—that users may not find useful. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) recommends that you research and remove any software or services that are not being used regularly.

In Win10 settings I go to privacy and turn off everything by default. If it turns out I need something I can always turn it back on. You should also check the "apps" settings to see what is chattering on the internet.

Check out their tips section for more useful advice on staying safe in the connected world.

If you use data services on your phone, do you keep up to date on security threats to your phone? We had to change all of our bank account numbers because of some scam pulled through my wife's Iphone. They didn't get any money. But our bank reported multiple calls from people claiming to be her, including guys talking in high voices.

I don't use data on my phone. If I'm away from my desktop or laptop, then it generally means I don't feel the need to be online. I have a legacy pay-as-you-go account with T-Mobile that is cheaper than dirt. I get to use classic Iphones that fit in my pocket. And I get great battery life too.

Sven

@WABAC, thank you for the information and advice. This article is meant for many who are less experience than you are.

WABAC

@sven: Everyone has to start somewhere. And Forbes offers good standard advice. The Wired article provides some practical how-to's to address some of the basic issues in #6 in the Forbes article.

The information at CISA is easy to read for the motivated layman. If your house is part of the internet of things then you can handle that website.

I'm not trying to pound you. Just making some general points for others reading along.

Besides general email and internet hygiene, most people just need to be careful about where they leave their account information. Why hack WABAC for one password if you can hack Target, or some other ecommerce site?