By Matt Gallagher
Your Finances
Matt Gallagher
Cybercrime is a spectrum of malicious activity that targets computer systems, data systems, or private information with the intent to wreak havoc or pull in a profit for the hacker. Cybercrime is conducted by individual hackers or organizations with advanced and well-organized hacking operations. Types of crime include email fraud and identity fraud, theft of personal, corporate or business data and ransomware attacks.
As many aspects of our lives and businesses operate online, endless breadcrumbs of information populate our digital paths. Various forms of online activity, such as posting vacation photos on our social media profiles or logging into accounts on public Wi-Fi, leave footprints that can be followed. If unguarded and spotted by the right hacker or cybercriminal, these trails lead directly to some of our most important assets: our wealth, investments, personal information and data.
With the advent of any humanitarian crisis or natural disaster, opportunistic cyber criminals will leverage our fear and need for information to gain access to individuals’ computers and personal information through phishing and other spoofing schemes.
These major threats require risk mitigation, risk management and/or risk transfer strategies as the crisis unfolds.
The best way to protect yourself from cybercrime is to raise your awareness of where vulnerabilities exist and take proactive steps to safeguard against them.
Email fraud: About 90 percent of all cybercrime starts with an email. Hackers can deploy various techniques like emulating someone you know to get you to open an email, click a link or take some action that leaves your device unprotected. If you are a public figure or high-net-worth individual, your accounts can become even more targeted. Be sure to check the sender’s address and be skeptical of anything that doesn’t look or feel right. If it doesn’t look right, don’t open it. When in doubt, delete it out.
Invoicing scams: Scammers will monitor personal news such as births, deaths or new homes and then send invoices for payment. For example, after finding a widow on the internet, scammers will pretend to be a collection agency calling about the recently deceased’s debt.
Charitable donation scams: Beware of requests for money immediately after a disaster. Scammers set up fake websites with names similar to real charities and solicit donations.
“Remember password” functions should always be turned off on your computer.
Never auto-save your username and password information.
Online financial transactions should only be done on secure websites. Websites that begin with “https” (as opposed to just “http”) have a layer of encryption called secure sockets layer, or SSL. Never enter your credit card information or other sensitive data into a site without the “s.”
Do not access financial or other accounts from mobile devices or through public Wi-Fi. Financial transactions should only be conducted on a virtual private network. A VPN is a type of encrypted tunnel that masks your IP address and makes it harder to breach your network connection. There are many VPN options available that can be installed on your device via free download or subscription service.
Keep computer software up to date, including firmware on routers and modems.
Install antivirus/malware software like Norton, McAffee or Total AV on all devices (even your Apple computers and mobile devices).
Ensure home Wi-Fi networks are secure. Use WPA2 or WPA3 security and a unique password. Call your internet provider if you are not sure what you have.
Enable security features on any devices and/or websites – PINs, fingerprint authentication, facial recognition or multifactor authentication.
Use password management systems such as Last Pass or Keeper to protect your credentials. These secure websites will help you better manage your usernames and passwords. Passwords should be a minimum of 12 characters and contain a mixture of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers and symbols.
While the digital age has brought us many conveniences as we navigate through the increasing pace of life, it has also brought new threats to our personal security. It is worth spending the necessary time it takes to educate ourselves and take these proactive steps to ensure we don’t fall victim to clever cyber thieves. Your data is your business.
Your assets are a result of what you have built and worked for. Protect them with the right measures. Financial planning and strategy are a big part of securing your future, but security has become a major component of that as well.
Matt Gallagher is a partner and head of business development at TrinityPoint Wealth. He can be reached at 203-693-8519 or mgallagher@trinitypointwealth.com.