boiMAG.com "Cyber Crime"

by Jack Santo

Worried about cyber crime?

Will law enforcement help you when you get hit? They will listen to you, and they will make a report, but there’s nothing they can do. There's not law enforcement people specifically trained and paid who are setup in an office to help you, that’s all in your head. It’s up to you, and each and everyone of us to protect ourselves.

The way to do this is somewhat simple. Change your password when anything suspicious shows up. Use a strong memorable password and for bank accounts, add extra a keyboard symbol or two, like # or ##.

Make sure you don’t open or click on any email that you don’t know, especially ones that look suspicious. Delete them immediately! Some are super suspicious, others have the same email address as your bank or store account. Don’t be stupid, big companies like Amazon don’t use gMail or any other email service like yahoo. If you see a big company sending you email that has @gmail or @yahoo or @hotmail at the end of their email tag, then it’s a big red flag! It could be fraudulent. So the best thing to do is to is call, visit or log in to your bank and see if there are any notifications. 9 out of 10 times, it’s usually a scam. Look to see and make sure it's coming from a trusted sender, one that you know and trust.

Do not order anything online other than from an official proven-safe website. Meaning, don’t click on anything in an email, go to a store’s website. Instead, just type it into your online browser, like Macys.com or Amazon.com. Then you know that you went directly to the store’s website and it much safer that way. However, make 100% sure you type the right web address, any mistakes can take you to an impostors site.

Do not visit porn sites or anything related to sex! If you must, then use a dedicated computer to do so. Make sure that computer doesn’t have any personal information on it. Back it up first, then if it gets infected, just restore it from the backup. Remember to clear out all those cookies. They leave a trail and can do some harm.

For contests, signups, app-trials, porn sites, etc. Setup a special email just for that. This way, you can track all those people tracking you from the emails they send you. Again, don’t open any that are suspicious.

Get yourself an Apple Mac computer. They are less likely to be hacked because most people use a PC and they are easier targets. The whole business world runs on PC computers and fraudsters know how to hack a PC computer.

Always shut down & reboot all your devices once a week to get new connections. This also applies to your iPhone or Android, and computers, including desktops, laptops, and iPads, you’ll be glad you did.

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