3 Easy Ways To Protect Against Identify Theft:
1. Get RFID Cards for your Debit & Credit Cards
For less than $20 you can protect your wallet on the street from people walking by or standing next to you on the train with a scanner. I recommend this one on Amazon.
2. Get Avast Anti-Virus Protection Here for Mac
I highly recommend Avast Anti-Virus for the reasons I list below.
- Avast will warn you when you are using an non-secure WiFi network and also (FYI you might not want to login to your bank account, make a purchase from your local Starbucks these are public, non-secure WiFi networks).
- Avast will warn you when you are visiting an non-secure network (these are high risk and should be avoided at nearly all costs). The only time I safely browse an non-secure network is when it is my own.
- Avast will warn you when computer is infected by a virus if you set up daily / weekly / monthly scans. This is an obvious one but people are under these false pretenses that “my computer cannot get a virus”…I say better safe than sorry. What is the harm in having Antivirus either way? A few buck is the answer and I recommend Avast AntiVirus.
3. Check the “from” email closely before sending anyone your info or opening an attachment
Bear with me because I am going to go into this one a bit more in depth for the industry professionals because it blows my mind how careless people can be even after their company warns them over and over. Before you download an attachment from an unknown sender or provide them with your username / password credentials. It is EXTREMELY easy to mask the identity of the email sender by simply changing the description on your email when entering it into your phone.
Apple should do a better job of monitoring this. But this is a VERY black-hat marketing trick used to exploit both the iOS framework and the hopeful mind of the reader. If I have your email, which I can easily get since you are on my website, I can send you an email from what appears to be Kim Kardashian from the naked eye. Warning: if you receive an email from an unknown name from your company asking you to reset your password, they are probably trying to hack your company’s server and you are about the help them do that.
This can be done by simply clicking the “from” email link and looking at the actual email url (see screenshot below). If the email from the so-called person at your company is not from @yourcomapnydomain.com this is probably not who they say they are.
- click the description link annotated below
- then look at the address annotated below to determine the URL source
- see how I can make it say whatever I want? this is why we do this.
You typically cannot be hacked by simply opening the email as Google and most other email servers do a good enough job filtering the very malicious stuff. So, again watch out for the attachments and people asking you for bank account info or to reset your password.
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