October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month

So much of our lives and information is increasingly embedded in the digital world. This comes with incredible insights and convenience, but also remains a risk to personal privacy and security. In this day and age, staying completely offline is not always a possibility, but we can all learn some simple and effective ways to protect our information online!

This Cybersecurity Month, we want to go back to the basics and highlight four major ways you can practice online safety, and in turn, Secure Our World.

Easy Tips to Stay Secure

Use Strong Passwords

We have hundreds of online accounts these days. Financial institutions, video and music streaming apps, education portals, food delivery services, utility companies, medical accounts—phew, we’re running out of breath!

With all these different logins we must remember, it’s easy to just use the same password over and over again. However, this means that once just one of your account passwords is guessed correctly by hackers, all your accounts using that password could be compromised!

When creating passwords, it’s important to choose a unique combination of letters and numbers, or a specific combination of words, every single time. Include numbers, uppercase and lowercase letters, and special symbols if allowed.

It’s also good practice to:

• Change your password regularly. This doesn’t have to be every single week! After a few months with one password, switching to another secure, hard to guess login will help keep you safe.
• Use a password manager. You don’t have to rely on memory for all your accounts. A password manager is a place to store all your login information in one secure place. This way you don’t have to store passwords by writing them down where they can be stolen or committing everything to memory.
• Check and see whether your password has been exposed in data breaches at haveibeenpwned.com

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Turn on Multi-Factor Authentication

Multi-Factor Authentication is an option for many online accounts that protects user’s accounts even if your password has been compromised. After logging in, you may be prompted to enter in a code sent to one of your devices, log into another authenticator app, or even answer a security question.

Learn more about how to ensure you have the best phone number on file for MFA in Community First Digital Banking here, or in our other article about setting up an authenticator app.

Be aware of phishing and smishing messages

We have numerous articles about how to recognize phishing (fraudulent messages) attempts. With today’s technology, fraudsters can impersonate tech support, family, financial institutions, and even potential love interests.

They key things to look for when receiving an unsolicited text, email (or even phone call!) are:

• Odd messaging. Scam attempts are often riddled with poor grammar, misspelled words, or make little sense. Also look for odd email addresses, or suspicious looking attachments.
• Sense of urgency. Most of the time, fraudsters key goal with these fake messages is to instill a sense of fear and/or urgency in their potential victims that prompts them to click on a link or hand over sensitive information. This can be through threats or even promises of a reward.
• Remember to take a moment to assess the message, and if you think it may be legitimate, reach out to the person or organization using known and verified contacts.

Remember to not click on links you receive from unknown contacts or that are in suspicious messages.

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Update Software

We know, software updates can be annoying! Sometimes they seem to take too long or don’t even change anything you can notice on your device!

Many of these updates actually contain security updates or patches that will help keep your device safer, and less susceptible to malware (malicious software).

Secure Our World

Sometimes these tips and tricks to stay safe online can seem redundant or even common-sense, but with advances in technology comes more sophisticated phishing attempts from criminals.

Learning and remembering the basics of cybersecurity, as well as being aware of the new methods fraudsters use to steal your information can help keep you safe! Always remember to stop and assess the situation before you click, and if something seems too good to be true, it probably is!

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