Recently, 3 of the nicest people I know got swindled.
My Great Aunt Millie, a spry 88, was doing her routine of checking out her kids, grand kids and friends on Facebook—yes she is on Facebook and is probably even more active than I am! And then every morning after she has a cup of coffee in hand, she checks her email religiously.
2 months ago Aunt Millie got hacked. While in her email, she came across a notice from the bank telling her she had to contact a bank manager ASAP because there were concerns about her account. In the email, there was a link that brought her to a page asking for her social security number, date of birth and address. Not thinking much of it, she dug into her purse and began entering the information.
Last week, when Millie went to the bank to make a withdrawal to send money to her grandkids, she noticed that the account seemed low. The teller showed her that she had made 3 withdrawals the previous few weeks each for $600. After Millie’s daughter came to help her figure out what happened and sifting through the email send from the bank, had everyone realized she had been phished.
Earlier in August, my next door neighbor gave up his information to someone claiming to be from the IRS calling to notify him of overdue taxes.
And then just last week, a friend’s mom clicked onto a compromised site and got a ransomware virus, losing all of her photos and memories. Even after paying a ransom, she wasn’t able to recover Anything!
Because trusting people like your mom or grandma are easy targets, I want to spend a few moments going through some steps protecting them online. Some easy tips for them to have by their side while checking email, Facebook, or even dealing with strangers in general. How to keep them from divulging too much information?
Here are 7 things to arm Grandma with before she goes online next:
- Think twice—when someone asks for personal info, never turn it over blindly. Err on not giving out ANY information online, over the phone, or in the mail. Especially if people are soliciting for specific information, keep to a policy of “no”.
- Ask questions— when setting up new accounts, be sure to understand how Grandma’s information will be used. Will they sell her information to solicitors that may confuse or try to sell her things she doesn’t need? Companies should be able to clearly outline what their policies are and what they do to prevent your info getting out to bad guys.
- Say no—consider being on the Do Not Call List, decide not to share your info with callers or solicitors, or even with companies you might be interested establishing a relationship.
- Defend her against social engineering—make sure Grandma doesn’t share too much personal information online if she is interested in keeping up with social trends. Have her call published numbers rather than ones presented on emails to make sure she is talking to the right people—NEVER call or click on links in emails. Rather type in urls and call numbers published on websites to avoid getting caught in a cyber criminal’s net.
- Don’t store passwords in easy-to-access places—if Grandma insists on keeping passwords written down, have her store them somewhere that isn’t too obvious—instead of titling a notebook “passwords”, at least rename it something else (recipes?). If she wants to keep passwords on her computer, don’t have her store them in a document titled “passwords”. Rather, set her up with a KeePass account, which will encrypt her information and keep her passwords safe.
- Don’t use the same password for everything—it is tempting to just use one password for everything. Even I wish things could be this easy! Have Grandma come up with passwords that are easy to remember, here are some password tips and keep those passwords safe (see Tip 5).
- Check app privacy settings and take care of setting up security settings immediately—make sure that Grandma’s privacy settings are secure. Look in last week’s post on how to increase security settings for some popular sites.
Bottom Line: Times are changing, criminals are getting sneakier and securing personal information has become a must. Make sure you help Grandma keep her information safe so she doesn’t become victim to a scam or hack. We don’t want to hear about any more stories of nice people getting taken advantage of!
And of course, if you have any questions about keeping personal information safe—whether it’s for your personal data, Grandma’s, of your business, feel free to reach out!
We care about your business, but we also want to keep you, your family and your team safe wherever you might be!
