Online Safety Tools and Trades
This week, I want to introduce a special guest and friend, Former Secret Service Special Agent and SVP of Global General Services at Fiserv, Peter Cavicchia. With over 20 years of experience, Peter is one of the top cyber-security experts out there having investigated highly sophisticated electronic crimes and testifying in federal court as an expert witness. In other words, he is the real deal!
According to recent FBI reports, cybercrimes have quadrupled during the pandemic. This to me is extremely alarming. So I interviewed Peter and asked him to share his top tips on how you can stay cyber-safe from online hackers and scammers.
Where are we vulnerable and how do we defend ourselves?
For the most part, criminals are looking for personal data they can use with minimal effort to gain access to funds and move them quickly to be able to conduct cash-out activities and disappear. Some slightly more sophisticated groups prefer your full personal details, date of birth, social security number, etc., in order to apply for credit or pass this information to your bank to take over your existing accounts. The most important defense mechanism against cybercrimes is taking advantage of strong authentication in every channel you use. The leading cause of cyber driven scams is account takeover, password theft, and impersonation. I’m talking about your email, bank, PayPal, Zelle, Venmo, anywhere you store files online.
Is a treasure trove of intelligence telling a criminal where you bank, who your family and friends are, what you buy, and if you made transactions by email that have your personal details on them. This can provide a criminal with a long-term ability to continue to attempt to defraud you.
PETER'S TIP: Turn on multi-factor authentication for all your accounts, including email.
Online gaming
Has become a huge target these days because many of them require payments to play or buy upgrades. These payment details are many times the parents of an underage player's information and are only protected by a username and password in the hands of the child. Early on there weren’t many protections around this, but more recently gaming platforms have added parental control features and levels of authentication.
PETER'S TIP: Parents make sure to set parental controls for your kids’ online gaming.
Personal computers
Should have some level of malware protection installed. Without this, malware can potentially intercept data you enter into websites, steal passwords, or lock your computer and make it useless unless you pay a ransom to the criminal. All of these happen because the criminal was able to get you to click on an attachment or link that delivered you malware. Most anti-malware tools update themselves automatically and will catch a bad attachment or malicious website and block them.
PETER'S TIP: Don’t open emails or links that you do not recognize or seem suspicious, even it’s from someone you trust. Email accounts get hacked all the time.
For more tips follow Peter Cavicchia on Twitter and stay up to date on the latest!
