Protecting your identity while online is one of the biggest steps you can take to prevent yourself from being a target of a cyber-attack or identity theft. While many of us may think it won’t happen to me, or why would anyone want to steal my identity? Hackers are equal opportunity and will search for vulnerable users to exploit. Here are a few simple tips to lower your risks.
- Don’t over share.
- Things such as your date of birth, children’s, or pet’s names can be used to try to determine your password.
- Vary your user names, while it may be hard to remember them all for different sites it will ensure if one account is compromised they won’t all be.
- Try to avoid user names that give up too much information as well. Avoid using your email handle as your user name, while it may help you keep track, again if the account is compromised now your email address may be compromised as well.
- Consider having two separate email addresses. One you use strictly for banking and other financial needs, the other for social media and shopping.
- This could help identify a phishing email, if say you get a message about your bank or credit card account, and it’s linked to a different email address.
- Be selective with who you add on your social media sites.
- If you aren’t personally familiar with the person sending the request you may wish to ignore or deny that request.
- Many hackers/scammers use social media to try to either scam users into sending them money or to hack their account to get the users contact info, as well as the contact for their friends.
- If you aren’t personally familiar with the person sending the request you may wish to ignore or deny that request.
- Use different passwords for each site.
- Having different username and password combinations will help keep your accounts protected.
- This would be especially helpful for your online banking accounts or credit card accounts.
- Having different username and password combinations will help keep your accounts protected.
Detailed information regarding phishing scams and other IT security topics are available on our IT Security website at: SecureIT.Fordham.edu or from our blog at itsecurity.blog.fordham.edu
If you have any questions or concerns, please contact IT Customer Care at (718) 817-3999 or via email to: HelpIT@fordham.edu.
Original Author: Gerald Johnson Jr.