Tips on Avoiding Scams

Apr 29
2 min read

Cyberattacks are the fastest-growing crime in the U.S. – and they cause personal and business devastation every day.

What’s the No. 1 type of cyberattack?

Ransomware, and experts say it’s a growing concern. A type of malware that

encrypts a victim’s files, ransomware allows the attacker to demand money to

restore access to important documents or photos saved on your hard drive.

What is Phishing?

Phishing is the attempt to gain usernames, passwords and credit card numbers by impersonating a trustworthy sender in an email or other digital communication. This might entail disguising their email to look like someone you know or including a link to a fake website to trick you into entering private information.

Two popular Phishing scams to be aware of:

A caller pretends to be from law enforcement, the government or a bank and will try to gain access to Social Security numbers, account numbers or other personal information by asking the victim questions for “verification” purposes.

Smishing is an SMS (or text) version of phishing. You know those automated alerts from the credit card company or PayPal? It might be disguised in that way.

Next steps: How to protect yourself

If you are unsure if a call you answer is a phishing scam, hang up and dial the company you believe is trying to reach you – for example, your bank – directly.
Be diligent about not sharing information. It might be fun to answer a silly quiz on Facebook but criminals can use this to gain access to security question answers, like your first dog’s name or the street you grew up on.
Use multifactor authentication, which requires two or more authentication factors to access devices, applications or online accounts.
Use secure passwords that include a mix of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers and symbols. Make sure each password is at least 12 characters and doesn’t contain personally identifiable information. Pro tip: Use a password management app to help you create and organize them.
Regularly back up files to a local external server or a cloud server. At least you’d have access to all your files in case of an attack.