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There are no ifs, ands, or buts about it: A stolen identity creates a mess. Once they have a few key pieces of personally identifiable information (PII), an identity thief can open new credit lines, create convincing new identities, and ruin an innocent person’s good credit.
If you suspect you’ve been affected by identity theft, acting quickly is key to stopping the thief and repairing the damage. Here are the definitive five steps of identity remediation, or the process of restoring and protecting the privacy of your identity.
With a stolen identity in hand, thieves can open new lines of credit or apply for large loans using someone else’s excellent credit score for leverage. If undetected, fraudsters can run up huge bills, never pay them, and in turn, ruin the credit score that you spent years perfecting. When you suspect or confirm that your identity has been compromised and you’re in the United States, alert the three major credit bureaus: Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian.
Freezing your credit means that no one (not even you) can open a new credit card or bank account. This prevents criminals from misusing your identity. Initiating a credit freeze is free and it doesn’t affect your credit score.
Once you suspect a criminal has stolen your identity, file a report with the Federal Trade Commission. Its official identity theft website includes a form for you to detail the circumstances. From there, the FTC will investigate.
It’s important to file a report because law enforcement can get involved and hopefully stop the criminal from striking again. Also, an official document from law enforcement or the FTC may help your bank and the credit bureaus resolve the damage.
Whenever a company with which you have an account is breached, the first step you should take is to quickly change your password. The same goes for when your identity is compromised with the added step of getting in touch with your banks and asking their fraud department to issue you new credit and debit cards and put them on alert for possible suspicious charges.
Having unique passwords for all your accounts is crucial to keeping them secure. For instance, if one of your accounts is breached and a cybercriminal lifts that username and password combination, they may then attempt to use it on other sites. To ensure you have strong passwords and passphrases for every site, consider using password manager software. Password managers are incredibly secure and make it so you only have to remember one password ever again.
In addition to freezing your credit, you may have to sync up with each bureau to remedy any damage the identity thief may have done to your credit. Each bureau’s fraud department is very familiar with these scenarios, so their customer service department is experienced and more than willing to help you work through it.
Once you’ve cleaned up the immediate mess made by an identity thief, it’s important to continuously monitor your identity in case the thief is biding their time or pieces of your PII are still circulating on the dark web. Plus, the headache of one compromised identity incident is enough for someone to never want it to happen again. Identity monitoring is a very thorough process that will give you peace of mind that you’ll be protected and can enjoy your online life safely.
These five steps, while important, can be tedious. It may require a lot of patience to sit on hold and sift through all the relevant forms. Luckily, McAfee is an excellent partner who can help you with all your identity remediation needs with just one service: McAfee+ Ultimate. For example, security freeze is an easy way to put a halt on your credit. McAfee’s identity monitoring service monitors up to 60 unique types of personal details. If your PII appears on the dark web, Personal Data Cleanup can remove it.
Recover and move forward confidently after an identity theft with McAfee by your side.
The post Everything You Need to Know About Identity Remediation appeared first on McAfee Blog.
Password protection is one of the most common security protocols available. By creating a unique password, you are both proving your identity and keeping your personal information safer. However, when every account you have requires a separate password, it can be an overwhelming task. While you should be concerned about the safety of your data, you also want to avoid the frustration of forgetting your password and being blocked from the information you need. However, the benefits of using strong, unique passwords outweigh the occasional inconvenience.
The main benefit of a strong password is security. Hackers work quickly when they are trying to access accounts. They want to steal as much information as they can in as short a time as possible. This makes an account with a strong password less inviting because cracking the code is much more involved.
A strong password also limits the damage that hackers can do to your personal accounts. A common strategy involves cracking the passwords of less secure sites with limited personal information. The hackers hope that they can use the password from your gym membership app to access information in your online banking account. Strong password protection prevents this situation.
When someone is registering an online account, it can be tempting to blaze through the password process. In order to move quickly, there are several poor password practices that people employ.
A password is considered strong when it is difficult for a hacker to crack it quickly. Sophisticated algorithms can run through many password combinations in a short time. A password that is long, complex and unique will discourage attempts to break into your accounts.
If you want a password that is memorable but strong, you can easily turn a phrase into a layered, complex password. In this process, it is important to note that you should not use personal information that is available online as part of your phrase.
Now, you have a password that you can remember while challenging the algorithms hackers use.
When you consider the number of accounts you need to protect, coming up with a properly layered password is a time-consuming task. Even if you are able to decide on a memorable phrase, there are just too many accounts that need passwords. A password manager is a helpful tool to keep you safe while you are online. It acts as a database for all of your passwords. Each time you create a new code, it stores it so that you can automatically enter it later. You only need to remember a single password to access the tools of your manager.
Most managers can also do the work of creating complex, layered passwords for your accounts. These will be a string of random numbers, letters and characters. They will not be memorable, but you are relying on the manager to do the memorizing. These machine-generated passwords are especially helpful for accounts you rarely access or that do not hold significant information.
For critical accounts like your bank account or a work-related account, it can be helpful to keep an offline list of your passwords. Complex passwords are meant to be difficult to remember. You may recall the phrase but not all the detailed changes that make it layered. Keeping a document on a zip drive or even in a physical paper file or journal will allow you to access your information if your hardware fails or you are switching to a new system.
Cracking passwords is just one of the strategies hackers use to steal information. In addition to using strong passwords, it is important to employ comprehensive security software. Strong passwords will help protect your online accounts. Strong overall security will keep your hardware and network safe from danger.
The post Strong Password Ideas to Keep Your Information Safe appeared first on McAfee Blog.
World Password Day isn’t the most popular day on the calendar, but it’s an important reminder that good password hygiene is essential to staying safe online. This World Password Day, we’d like to talk about improving your password hygiene, how you can help your friends and family improve theirs, and what the future of authentication holds.
The SolarWinds hack in 2020 is one of the most devastating hacks in the history of the internet. Close to 20,000 company’s systems were compromised, losing billions of pieces of data in the process. If you’re one of the 37% of Americans that go long periods of time without updating passwords*, large-scale attacks like SolarWinds can be devastating. By stealing so many login credentials simultaneously, attackers can potentially access exponentially more accounts by reusing leaked credentials on different sites. Unfortunately this is not an isolated event, data breaches from websites and services we frequently use continue to happen through 2021 as well.
According to a recent survey we conducted, 34% of Americans have reused the same, or similar, password more than once. By using the same password for multiple accounts, attackers only need to find one password, creating a domino effect that makes it easier to access more accounts. If that password is weak, it becomes even easier to tip over that first domino.
Our guidance is to create strong, hard-to-guess passwords to protect your accounts. We recommend creating a unique password for every online account, using more than 16 characters, with upper and lower case letters, some numbers, and special symbols, to make a stronger than average password. How are you supposed to remember all of those strong passwords, though?
Well, password managers, especially those included in comprehensive security suites like McAfee® Total Protection, do much of the heavy lifting for you. For instance, McAfee’s integrated password manager not only helps you create stronger passwords and store them, but will also autofill your credentials and log you into websites as well. These convenient features extend beyond just your computer and can be used on other devices like your phone and tablet. Best of all, password managers that are an integrated part of a security suite can be monitored, so you’ll be alerted if your passwords get exposed in a data breach.
You’ve already taken a step towards improving your password hygiene by reading this blog post. But the next step is, have an honest look at your passwords. Do you write them down, use the same for many accounts, or use weak ones? Then it may be time for a change to better protect your accounts and the personal info in those accounts.
If you’re like a certain member of my family—that will remain nameless, Mom—who kept their passwords written down in a notepad, making the change to a password manager (McAfee’s, naturally) was a life-changing moment. Not only did it help her see just how often she was using the same login credentials, she now has an easy way to store, auto-fill, and even generate strong passwords across all her accounts and devices. An intended bonus was that she also realized how many accounts she was no longer using!
Now that you know more about what makes a strong password and how to protect them, let’s talk about why strong passwords are just the start of keeping your accounts safe. You’re probably already using Two-Factor Authentication for apps and services, but you may not have heard the term before. Two-Factor Authentication, or 2FA, is the second layer of protection to authenticate or prove you are the owner of this account. If you’ve received a text message or an email to confirm a new account signup, that’s a type of 2FA.
Text messages and email aren’t the only types of 2FA. There are USB keys, apps, and even systems built-in to your phone, like facial recognition to open phone apps, for example. Some popular 2FA options are USB keys and Google Authenticator.
The great thing about 2FA is that it helps make your strong passwords even more effective by stopping an attacker from using stolen credentials. If you fell victim to a phishing attack that looked like your bank’s website, the attacker would have your email and password combination. Without 2FA, they could log into your account and pretend they’re you. With 2FA in place, it becomes much harder for an attacker to access your account because they’re missing that last important piece of information.
Humans are almost always the weakest link when it comes to securing information. But by committing ourselves to better password practices, with help from the latest technology, we can make sure passwords are a strong link in our security chain; one that will only get stronger in the future.
For instance, using a device like a key-fob, new passwordless systems can authenticate a user without entering their login details. Not only does this make logging into your accounts lightning fast, you also never have to remember a complicated password again.
Biometric locks, like FaceID, are another example of passwordless entry. Using your face, or a fingerprint to authenticate yourself makes it much harder for attackers to break into your accounts.
We hope this Password Day post has helped answer some questions about password hygiene and how to take better care of your online accounts. Online security changes from day to day, so staying aware of new technologies and building safe new habits is essential. Perhaps one day this day will no longer need to exist on our calendars, as we look to a future where we might not need passwords at all. While we collectively make strikes towards this future, let’s celebrate this day while it lasts.
To stay updated on all things McAfee and on top of the latest consumer and mobile security threats, follow @McAfee_Home on Twitter, subscribe to our email, listen to our podcast Hackable?, and ‘Like’ us on Facebook.
The post World Password Day: Make Passwords the Strongest Link in Your Online Security appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
Video conferencing has really taken off this year. With more people working and learning from home than ever before, video calling has rapidly become the mainstream method for remote communication, allowing users to stay connected. But very few may realize that they might be giving away their passwords on video calls through their body language. According to Tom’s Guide, call participants can guess a user’s passwords through the arm and shoulder movements they make while they type.
Let’s unpack how this threat works so you can continue to connect via video calls worry-free.
Keyboard snooping, or a keyboard interference threat, occurs when an attacker is present on a video call and observes the target’s body and physiological features to infer what they are typing. To pull off this attack, the hacker would need to record the meeting or video stream and feed it through a computer program. This program eliminates the visual background and measures the user’s arm and shoulder movements relative to their face. From there, the program analyzes the user’s actions to guess which keys they are hitting on the keyboard – including passwords and other sensitive information.
So, how accurate is this program, anyway? While this shows that the program was only correct 20% of the time when subjects were on their own devices in an uncontrolled environment, the program’s accuracy increased to 75% if their password was one of the one million most commonly used passwords. And suppose the program already knew their email address or name. In that case, it could decipher when the target was typing this information during the video call (and when their password would immediately follow) 90% of the time. The less complex the target makes their password, the easier it is for the program to guess what they’re typing.
Keystroke inference attacks can have potentially dangerous effects, since the text typed can often contain sensitive or private information even beyond passwords, like credit card numbers, authentication codes, and physical addresses. It’s also important to note that any video conferencing tool or videos obtained from public video sharing/streaming platforms are susceptible to this attack.
Therefore, to prevent your meeting attendees from snooping on what you’re typing, follow these tips for greater peace-of-mind:
Avoid giving keyboard snoopers the upper hand by making your password or passphrase as unique as the information it’s protecting. If a hacker does manage to guess your password for one of your online accounts, they will likely check for repeat credentials across multiple sites. By using different passwords or passphrases for your online accounts, you can remain calm and collected knowing that the majority of your data is secure if one of your accounts becomes vulnerable.
Two or multi-factor authentication provides an extra layer of security, as it requires multiple forms of verification like texting or emailing a secure code to verify your identity. Most popular online sites like Gmail, Dropbox, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. offer multi-factor authentication, and it takes just a few minutes to set it up. This reduces the risk of successful impersonation by criminals who may have uncovered your information by keyboard snooping.
Take your security to the next level with a password manager, like the one included in McAfee Total Protection. A password manager can help you create strong passwords, remove the hassle of remembering numerous passwords, and log you on to websites automatically.
To stay updated on all things McAfee and on top of the latest consumer and mobile security threats, follow @McAfee_Home on Twitter, listen to our podcast Hackable?, and ‘Like’ us on Facebook.
The post How to Prevent Keyboard Snooping Attacks on Video Calls appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
Technology has come in handy for most of us during these days of pandemic distancing. But for the -at-risk, homebound senior population, technology has been a lifeline connecting them to family members, online services, and healthcare. Still, this unprecedented shift to virtual life has also come with potential risks that seniors and their families should keep in mind.
According to a Pew study, senior adults continue to become more digitally connected, but adoption rates continue to trail younger users, and digital divides remain. The study also revealed that 77% of older adults needed assistance when it came to learning how to use technology.
If you are a senior or someone helping a senior become more tech-savvy, online safety should be a priority. Here are just some of the risks seniors may encounter and some helpful ways to stay safe.
Secure home routers and devices. Be sure to change your router’s default username and password to something strong and unique. Also, change the default passwords of any connected device before connecting to your home network. IoT (Internet of Things) devices are all the technologies under your roof that can connect such as security systems, healthcare monitors, hearing aids, and smart TVs. These technologies are embedded with sensors or software that can connect and exchange data with other household devices — and each must be secured to close privacy gaps. There are also routers with embedded security, to help secure the home from threats, no matter what devices is connected to the home network.
Use strong passwords. Strong passwords are essential for in-home devices, personal devices, social media sites, and any healthcare or banking portal. Creating a strong password is also a front-line defense against identity theft and fraud. For seniors, keeping passwords in one place is important, but can be hard to remember them all. comprehensive security software includes password management functionality, which makes it easer, to create and safely archive your passwords. -.
Avoid scams. There are a number of scams that target seniors. Phishing scams are emails that look legitimate that end up taking millions from seniors every year. For this reason, never click on suspicious links from government agencies, banks, hospitals, brokerages, charities, or bill collectors unless you are certain they are legitimate. Scammers use these malicious links to con people out of giving away cash or personal data that can be used to create a number of fraudulent accounts. Consider protecting all personal devices with a comprehensive security solution.
Use a personal VPN. A Virtual Private Network (VPN) encrypts (or scrambles) your data when you connect to the Internet and enables you to browse or bank with your credentials and history protected. To learn about VPNs, watch this video.
Beware of dating scams. People aren’t always who they appear to be online. And while dating scams can happen to any age group, they can be especially harmful to a vulnerable senior who may be lonely and living on a limited income. Love scam red flags: Beware of people who claim to be from the U.S. but often travel or work overseas. Also, avoid people who profess their love too quickly, share personal struggles too soon, and never meet face-to-face.
Take a closer look. Fraudulent websites look very real these days. A secure website will have an “https” in the browser’s address bar. The “s” stands for “secure.” If the web address or URL is just http, it’s not a secure site. Still unsure? Read reviews of the site from other users before making a purchase. Never send cash, cashier’s check, or a personal check to any online vendor. If purchasing, always use a credit card in case there is a dispute.
Never share personal data. Be wary of emails or websites that require you to give personal information, such as your social security number, phone number, account, or family information. This includes those fun social media quizzes, which are also ways that cybercriminals can find out your personal details, such as a pets name, year you were born, your home town. All those pieces of personal data can be used to commit identity theft.
Monitor financial accounts. Nowadays, it’s essential to review all financial statements for fraudulent activity. If suspicious activity is found, report it to your bank or credit card account immediately. It’s also a good idea to put a credit alert on your accounts to detect potential fraud.
This unique time has issued unique challenges to every age group. However, if you know a senior, keep their potential technology needs in mind. Check in from time to time and offer your help. If you are a tech-savvy senior (and I know many), consider reaching out to peers who may be struggling and afraid to ask. In addition, YouTube has a number of easy-to-understand videos on any tech question. In addition, both Apple and Microsoft stores offer free advice on their products and may also help. Just be sure to visit their official websites to reach legitimate tech support channels.
The post 8 Ways to Help Senior Adults Stay Safe Online These Days appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
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