Being Socially Aware: Actively guarding your Social Media Presence
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on Monday, December 14, 2015
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Security & Fraud Information
Being Socially Aware: Actively guarding your Social Media Presence
October is National Cyber Security Awareness Month. Join us each week as we share important tips and recommendations that intend to help keep you safe from fraudsters, hackers, social engineers, and other Internet-originating threats. The following are important tips you can use to stay more secure:
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Think before you post: Personal status updates, photos, travel details, and comments reveal more about you than you intend to disclose. When used by a professional criminal experienced in gathering data from extensive Google searches, the malicious party can quickly obtain enough about you to readily assume your identity.
- Don’t contaminate your banking login credentials: Use unique passwords for each of the websites you access. Use a secure password manager on a mobile device to keep track of the different credentials. Use a complex password (nine or more characters, upper, lowercase and special characters). Never, ever use the same password for your online banking account as you do for any other account.
- Don’t click on unsolicited and unknown links: Criminals often post phony links that claim to show who has been viewing your profile. Test unknown links at sites like Norton Safeweb by pasting the link into the “Look Up a Site – Get a Report” form on the upper right-hand side of the page.
- Be wary of bait messages: Posts with subjects along the lines of, “LOL! Look at the video I found of you!” When you click the link, you get a message saying that you need to upgrade your video player in order to see the clip, but when you attempt to download the “upgrade,” the malicious page will instead install malware that tracks and steals your data.
- Watch the location sharing: Geolocation apps such as Waze and Foursquare share your exact location, which also lets criminals know that you aren’t home, so reconsider broadcasting that information.
- Stay suspicious on text and email alerts: Your financial institution will not text you regarding account or debit card problems. Never share account numbers, passwords and other confidential data. Always respond to any alert with a phone call to the legitimate number (looked up independently) to your bank.
For more helpful tips on Cyber Security, be sure to follow the @ABABankers Twitter account and use the hashtags #NCSAM.