Just who are these cybercriminals? They can be young or middle aged, mostly male but also female, any nationality, and they could be next door or on the other side of the world. Most do it for money, but some do it just because they can; for fun and bragging rights. The important point is that they are smart and have the tools that make it easy to exploit any of your online accounts or transactions that aren\u2019t well-protected.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s at stake?<\/h4>\n
Being careless or just unaware of proper online safety can allow a cybercriminal, the \u201cbad guy\u201d, to steal your credentials like passwords, social security number, bank account logons, etc. Here are some of the bad things that they can do:<\/p>\n
- \n
- Credit card fraud\u2014use your information to make charges on your credit card<\/li>\n
- Ransomware\u2014lock your computer files and extort you for money<\/li>\n
- IoT threats\u2014compromise a router or connected camera<\/li>\n
- Account takeover\u2014use your credentials to make online transactions on your behalf<\/li>\n
- Identity theft\u2014steal your identity and act on your behalf<\/li>\n
- They could even steal the title or deed to your home!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
According to Fool.com, 2019 was the worst year in history for identity theft, and 2020 has not been better so far.<\/p>\n
Are you a target?<\/h4>\n
If you have a social security card, you are at risk for identity theft. These bad guys target the young, the old, and everyone in between. It turns out that most of the identity theft occurs within the 20-49 age group, because they have more credit cards and they purchase more online.<\/a> However, when it comes to fraud reports other than credit cards, most of that occurs in the 60-69 age group. The most likely reason is that people become more trusting as they age.<\/a>\u00a0 Check out this chart showing the average fraud loss amount by age.<\/p>\n
![\"Fraud](\"http:\/\/investspectrum.com\/uma\/wp-content\/uploads\/Fraud-loss-by-Age-1.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nYounger adults lose money to fraud more often, but when older people experience a fraud-related financial loss, the median amount is much higher, according to the Federal Trade Commission.\u00a0 Source:\u00a0 2020 Identity Theft Statistics | Consumer Affairs<\/p>\n
What are the COVID-related things they\u2019re doing?<\/h4>\n
According to IdentityForce, the most common COVID-19 scams<\/a>\u00a0in 2020 include:<\/p>\n
- \n
- Fraudulent e-commerce vendors for masks, sanitizers, and test kits<\/li>\n
- Fraudulent investment sites<\/li>\n
- Phishing (email) and vishing (voice calls) through update emails, texts, and voicemails<\/li>\n
- Spoofed government and health organization communications<\/li>\n
- Fake vaccines or \u201cmiracle cures\u201d<\/li>\n
- Scam employment posts<\/li>\n
- Phony charity donation offers<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
What you can do<\/h4>\n
Keep your antivirus software up to date<\/h5>\n
If you don\u2019t do anything else, make sure you have an antivirus installed on your computer and keep it up to date. For Microsoft Windows, you should be on version 10, where Microsoft Defender Antivirus (formerly called Windows Defender) is the default and is actually pretty good. And, it\u2019s free and easy to use. If you feel that you need more, there are numerous apps available<\/a>.<\/a><\/p>\n
Check your bank account transactions regularly<\/h5>\n
If you regularly balance your checkbook and check your bank statement, you\u2019re ahead of the game on this point. Often the cybercriminal will steal your credit card information and begin making small purchases from the same places that you do. These small amounts add up over time but may not be caught by your bank or credit card company. If you see transactions that you did not make, call your bank or credit card company immediately!<\/p>\n
Password manager\u2014you need one<\/h5>\n
If your passwords are easy to remember, they\u2019re probably too weak. Basically, short passwords are weak; long passwords are strong. When it comes to passwords, the longer, the better. Also, you should never use the same password twice. If you\u2019re thinking \u201cThere\u2019s no way. I can\u2019t remember long passwords!\u201d, you\u2019re right. That\u2019s why you need a password manager. You create one very long difficult pass phrase that you can remember. Then you use that to unlock the password manager, which stores all your other passwords.<\/p>\n
For the iPhone and Apple products, use the iCloud Keychain. This is great for Apple products, but unfortunately, it doesn\u2019t easily adapt to a PC.<\/p>\n
Here are a few good password managers<\/a><\/a>: RoboForm, Keeper, LastPass, DashLane, Bitwarden, LogMeOnce, etc. Most of these don\u2019t cost much, but they are extremely important for keeping your passwords organized and safe. Most of these can sync your passwords across all your devices, which is a must if, for example, you shop Amazon on your iPhone and your PC.<\/p>\n
MFA!<\/h5>\n
Today, even a good password is not enough! Weak passwords can be guessed; strong passwords could be stolen. The solution is multi-factor authentication (MFA). Simply put, MFA is short code or number that is sent to you in a text or email in addition to your password. For example, you go to your bank website to logon. You enter your username and password. Next, they send you a code that you must enter into a box on their site. This verifies that it was really you who is signing in; the \u201cbad guys\u201d will not have the code even if they had your password.<\/p>\n
What we\u2019re doing<\/h4>\n
At Spectrum, we\u2019ve also felt the impact of the pandemic, and we\u2019re doing our part. We\u2019ve tightened our security stance to protect your data and ours. Here are some of the specific things we\u2019re doing to protect your information:<\/p>\n
- \n
- Our \u201cClient Portal\u201d protects you by avoiding sending personal info in email<\/li>\n
- Our \u201cProspect Portal\u201d similarly protects prospective clients<\/li>\n
- Diligent email filtering, monitoring, and user training<\/li>\n
- MFA where possible<\/li>\n
- Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery testing<\/li>\n
- Masks, social distancing, and hand washing<\/li>\n
- Regular office sanitizing<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Together we can make our online experiences safe and profitable in 2021.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
With Christmas and the holidays behind us, we still have the added complication of COVID-19. This fact has not been lost on cybercriminals, the \u201cbad guys\u201d who are always trying to steal your identity by tricking you into giving up some of your personal information. So, now that you may have a little less time […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[107,94],"class_list":["post-2043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-you-can-use","tag-covid-19","tag-security"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/investspectrum.com\/uma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2043"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/investspectrum.com\/uma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/investspectrum.com\/uma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investspectrum.com\/uma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investspectrum.com\/uma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2043"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/investspectrum.com\/uma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2043\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2058,"href":"https:\/\/investspectrum.com\/uma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2043\/revisions\/2058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/investspectrum.com\/uma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investspectrum.com\/uma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investspectrum.com\/uma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}