If you want to stay safe, the current best practice is to use secure passwords, create unique passwords for all your accounts. Don’t use passwords like “password1234” or your name or “screen”. Your passwords should lokk more like “Ve26xeStUwaj” in order to keep hackers out of your accounts. Cybercriminals like to use “Phishing”, it’s a kind of social engineering and can be thought of as a kind of con. It doesn’t take elaborate software, viruses, or hacking to get information if users can easily be tricked in to giving it away.
Phishers usually pretend to be someone they’re not, and often prey on older people. Many pretend they’re a bank or website like Facebook or PayPal, and ask for you to input passwords or other info to solve a potential problem. Others may pretend to be people you know (sometimes through hijacked email addresses) or try and prey on your family using information about you publicly viewable on social networks, like LinkedIn, Facebook, or Google+.
Online Safety:
There’s no software cure for phishing. You simply have to stay sharp, and carefully read emails before clicking links or giving out information. Here’s a few brief tips to keep yourself safe from phishers.
- Don’t open emails from suspicious addresses or people you don’t know. Email isn’t really a safe place to meet new people!
- You may have friends that have email addresses that are compromised, and you may get phishing emails from them. If they send you anything weird, or aren’t acting like themselves, you may want to ask them (in person) if they’ve been hacked.
- Don’t click links in emails if you’re suspicious. Ever.
- If you end up on a website, you can generally tell who it is by checking the certificate or looking at the URL.
An authentic website may provide a security certificate, like PayPal.com does. The IRS does not, but US government websites almost always have a .GOV top level domain instead of .COM or .ORG. It’s very unlikely that phishers will be able to buy a .GOV domain.
If you think your bank or other secure service may need information from you, or you need to update your account, do not click the links in your emails. Instead, type in the URL and visit the site in question normally. This guarantees you wont be redirected to a dangerous, fraudulent website, and you can check to see if you have the same notice when you log in.
Never, ever give out personal information like credit card or debit card numbers, email addresses, phone numbers, names, addresses or social security numbers unless you’re absolutely sure you trust that person enough to share that information.
Much more tips coming soon.
NEW SIAM 