Protect yourself

Upon my reflection of what I've learned in my security class, I've come to the conclusion that the world is a brood of vipers waiting to strike the unsuspecting and helpless.

I'm not saying that everyone is wicked or some other outlandish claim. However, this material reminds me that the world can be a dangerous place and the internet is not exempt from that danger.

Identity theft/fraud has been huge for years, and won't likely go away. At work I often speak to customers who have fallen victim to phishing attempts, giving out their password or billing information freely because they believed it to be from a trustworthy source. Usually within days or even hours from giving up that information, the customer has felt the consequences.

There are things we can do to lessen the likelihood of falling victim to identity fraud.

• Don't walk around with your Social Security #, and certainly do not freely give it out. If a company requires your SSN, make sure you find out why before you give it up. Sometimes there's no way around it, but if a man at the grocery stores wants your SSN, there's something shady going on.
• Don't fall victim to phishing attempts. No legitimate company is going to email you asking for your password or account info out of the blue. The company sets up your password, why would they need it from you? If you receive any email from what claims to be your bank, call them to verify the legitimacy. However, do not call any numbers listed in the suspicious email, as this would just be someone attempting to social engineer you out of your information, and since you believe it to be the bank, you wouldn't be skeptical. Call the actual establishment and chances are they will tell you right there that the email is bogus.
• Check URLs in your address bar... make sure the sites you think you are visiting are actually where you ended up. Scam artists can make a page look exactly like your banks, or any other site, and trick you into putting in valuable information.

The biggest one for me to remember is making sure I'm running security software. I'm an IT guy, so it shouldn't be an issue... but sometimes it's hard to remember to follow what you teach. Also, for people who are into computers, sometimes we feel as though it won't happen to us because "we know what we're doing". The smartest computer tech in the world will probably still get a virus at some point. The systems we use are vulnerable and are being exploited all the time.

We need to watch what information we're putting out there.