Greg Priest
Management Services 
Committee Member
Priest Electric

In today’s world of electronic communication and banking, it’s always good to review cybersecurity reminders. Following are eight to keep in mind:

1. Update Your Software. Whether you are on iOS, Windows or Android, you need to make sure you have updated your operating system to include all the latest “fixes.”  This will protect you from the most common attacks and keep your system prepared to defend itself without your human input.
2. Two-Factor Identification. Any sensitive accounts, like banking, should force you to have two-factor identification already set up. This is the second set of credentials you need to change any password or even login.
3. Back Up Your Data.  This is not difficult in our world of cloud computing; you can have this set up to automatically back up in the background. Best practices are that your backup is not stored at your work site. Pay for cloud service with secure storage facilities. They will even have a backup of your backup.
4. No Public Wi-Fi.  While you think that a coffee shop’s free Wi-Fi is secure, or a random computer is willing to share internet access, don’t do it. 
5. Limit What You Share on Social Media. I know, we’re proud of our accomplishments. But there are entire businesses that scrape your public information and use it. We recently had to get rid of our “About” page on our business site, as criminals were scraping that information and trying to set up accounts in our business name by posing as customers and potential customers.
6. No Online Use of Debit Cards. While your debit card holding bank will tell you they are secure and will refund any fraud, read the customer agreement. Debit cards work too fast and immediately take money from your checking account; the dispute process is not resolved quickly. Credit cards are intentionally slow; disputes will put the burden on the merchant to prove payment legitimacy, and you have the benefit of keeping your money until resolution.
7. Suspicious Emails Are the Worst.  This could be its own subject as there are so many ways criminals are trying to get to us. Never download an attachment unless you are sure of the sender. Let’s review the most common scams:
   • Spoofing a Forged Email Address. It often looks like it’s from yourself, or a bank or any legitimate company. Upon review of the actual email address, it does not match its label. This will often get around your spam filter.
   • Phishing is Likely Combined on Top of Spoofing. Often it will look like a bank email but then “fish” for your information. It will ask you to use their link in the email to log-in to their website. Phishing emails can be “baited” as well. For example, fraud detected on your bank account, log-in here. Or a positive bait: confirm your reward, enter your information here. Don’t take the bait!
   • Smishing is the Same Thing as Above but Comes in a Text Message. This is phishing combined into a SMS text message, so the internet has crowned it Smishing. It works the same way. Set the bait (you’ve won something) and click here. Then the sender tries to reel you in.
8. Scan With an Anti-Virus Application. You may have caught a tracker or virus by accident.  If things aren’t behaving normally on your system, you can check it out. There is one big rule when it comes to anti-virus applications; you seek it out on your own.  There are many good apps that can help, but they never come to you;  you must go to their legitimate website and download.  Even if you’ve used their services before, never use an email link, ad or pop-up for anti-virus. See phishing above.

While these tips cannot protect you from all online threats, they are a great start. When in doubt, do your homework and due diligence. If you have any doubts about that email, just delete it. Happy computing.

Categories: Miscellaneous, Software

Tags: Software Cybersecurity

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