Cyber crime is here to stay: 10 tips to protect yourself and your business

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  1. Get Educated. Educate yourself about the types of scams, malware, phishing, spyware and other common and emerging threats that exist on the internet and how to avert them.
  2. Install Protective Software. Install a firewall and antivirus software, with automatic updates, on all computers and networks (including wireless) to avoid hackers, malware and viruses.
  3. Enable two-factor authentication (passwords and PINS) on devices, apps and on-line accounts, including e-mail accounts, whenever possible–one of the strongest cybersecurity measures available. Most on-line banking, finance, e-commerce and social media sites, as well as many e-mail providers, allow two-factor authentication.
  4. Use strong passwords with a combination of 10 to 15 upper and lower case letters, numbers and special characters. 
  5. Change Passwords Frequently. Passwords should be changed every 90 days and should be different for each account.  
  6. Click with caution.  Don’t open emails, download files or click links received from people or organizations that you don’t recognize. Even if the message is from someone you know, be cautious and look for information that indicates that the message is legitimate.
  7. Use Alerts. Add alerts to your on-line bank and credit card accounts so that you’ll know about unusual transactions immediately.
  8. Be Vigilant. Check your on-line bank and credit card account balances and transactions for fraudulent activity every day.
  9. Surf safely.  Use a search engine to navigate to the correct web-address to avoid phony web-sites. 
  10. Practice safe shopping.  Before you enter any payment information look for the following items on the web-site:  look in the address bar to see if the site starts with “https://; look for a trustmark to make sure the site is safe; when you’re on a payment page, look for the lock symbol in your browser, indicating that the site uses encryption or scrambling to keep your information safe. 
SKR+CO Expert
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