Your financial well-being is our highest priority, and one of our goals for 2018 is to walk you through the necessary steps to protect your online data. We think this will be almost as fun as paying taxes, and just as important! To make it more manageable, we’ll be sending you one new action item every month. In this email we’ll also include Step One (sent last Fall), as a gentle reminder if you haven’t yet completed the task.What was Step One? Here’s a recap:
Step One:
Place a freeze on your credit history at the top three credit agencies.
Why? Your personal information is online, even if you are not. Your banks, the DMV, Social Security, Credit Agencies, and many other institutions store your data online. We know that cybercriminals have the ability to steal this information. Freezing your credit history will make it more difficult for cybercriminals to use this information to open bank accounts or lines of credit. Think of it as putting a club on your steering wheel. Even if the criminal can break into your car, it will be much more difficult to drive off with it.
For more information on this step, you can read our blog post on freezing your credit.
Now for Step Two:
Update the operating software on your computers, tablets and smartphones, and continue to update as new patches become available.
Why? Software manufacturers are constantly fixing bugs and making improvements that are available to download in “patches”. These patches not only help your device run more effectively, it will also improve your security.
This is an important step especially because of security flaws called Meltdown and Spectre that were recently detected in most devices. If you are interested, you can read more by clicking on this link: https://meltdownattack.com/. The good news is that programmers are already creating patches to protect your devices against these vulnerabilities and will continue to create new patches as new threats emerge.
If you have any questions about these steps, now or as we go forward, please don’t hesitate to call.
Warm regards,
Diane & Lexi
