Blog Series – Safe in the wild – Privacy (Part 2)

What up guys welcome to episode 3 of safe in the wild, brought to you by Call It Services, where we give you advise on how you can stay safe in the wild i.e. on the internet. Every week we will be giving you helpful tips on how you can enjoy the internet with its many benefits, while avoiding its countless pitfalls.

Last week was part one of our privacy topic where we laid the foundation by explain how the internet works and some precautions you should take before getting on the internet. If you have not checked out last week’s episode, I suggest you pause this episode, go to last weeks episode so you can setup your foundation for today’s episode.

With this being part 2 and it conveniently falling on the week before black Friday and cyber Monday, where the world will be looking for deals on line and scammers will be upping their anti to gain access to your information because people tend to be more gullible when a sale is on, I would like to give you 5 tips to stay safe in this time of mad discount shopping.

I urge you, to share this with your network to make your circle more aware while shopping over the coming weekend.

1. Do not click on emails containing a Black Friday subject line or content.
   1. More than 90 percent of cyberattacks are initiated by phishing scams, which means hackers pretending to be a legitimate entity to gain access to your personal information. Every email you get with anything black Friday you should just delete it, if the email is from a legitimate source my advise is to go directly to their website and if the offer is real it will be there.
2. Do not do any of your shopping on a Public Network.
   1. Free internet is convenient, but it is not the place where you should be doing any online shopping where you enter your credit card details or your username and password to any account. It does not take a veteran hacker to snoop a public WIFI and pick personal information that is transmitted on that Wi-Fi. If you need to do your shopping, make sure you do from your private or trusted Wi-Fi. Never Public!
3. Sorry to be the break this to you but nothing is free, burn that phrase into your mind right now. “Nothing is free”. You will be bombarded with a surge if Black Friday free gift cards and surveys offering you all sorts of goodies if you participate, don’t believe it “Nothing is FREE!”. You will end up on a paging asking for personal information so you can get paid. Close that tab and run.
4. Back to episode one of Safe in the wild. Change your passwords – all of them. Yes, all of them. There is a good chance that your information is on the dark web, it is a good practice that just believe that. If you end up on a ecommerce site and need to create an account try use or password you have never used before, for more advise on passwords you can go to episode of safe in the wild, to get your password game in check.
5. Turn on 2 factor authentication on all accounts that allow you to do so, 2 factor authentication is when your bank send you a OTP before you authorize a transaction or how google lets you use your verified phone to sign into an unknown device. With 2 factor authentication turned on even if a hacker gains access to your email and password, they won’t be able to get into your account if you have 2 factor authentication turned on.

Cybercrime damages will cost the world $6 trillion annually by 2021, according to Cybersecurity Ventures. Ransomware will attack a consumer or business every five seconds by the end of next year — you do not have to be a statistic!

So in the midst of all the shopping and unbelievable prices on products, remember;

1. Delete all black Friday emails.
2. Do your shopping on trusted networks.
3. Nothing is Free.
4. Change your password.
5. Wherever possible turn on 2-factor authentication,