Kai Vaughn

Fraud prevention is one of our primary and constant concerns in today’s world where modern technology reigns. Follow these simple steps to help keep you fraud-free:

1. Be sensitive and suspicious enough in giving your personal information to a person or organization you are dealing with online. Fraudster tricks their victims into revealing confidential information using an ample amount of information they have on you.

2. Any online account you have will definitely have a password to prevent unauthorized people from modifying your account. In this case, it is wise to choose or generate a password that is strong enough and cannot be easily guessed by anyone.

3. ATM’s or cash machines are a popular method of withdrawing money. It is of great help but there are also various ways in which ATMs can be used to work against us. Thus, it is better to become extra careful in using ATM’s or cash machines because there’s a possibility that an installed device are attached that clones or traps your card. Based on studies, around 100,000 people a year fall victim to fraud related to skimmed or cloned debit and credit cards.

4. Many fraudsters will send an email claiming that they are from the bank and will require you to click a link and follow a certain instruction, when incident similar to this happened, ignore it the email.

Data Privacy Day, an international effort to highlight the importance of protecting privacy, safeguarding data and enabling trust, will be Jan. 27. According to a survey conducted by the National Cyber Security Alliance and Zogby International, only 26 percent of Americans felt “their home computer was safe from viruses,” while only 21 percent felt safe from hackers.

Every year we see hundreds of data breaches along with hundreds of millions of records compromised. The responsibility of keeping online data secure is shared both by businesses and consumers. The Better Business Bureau offers some suggestions for consumers concerned that their PII has been stolen:

-- Do not take a “wait and see” approach as you may have done with breaches involving credit card data. You must act quickly. Breaches involving Social Security numbers have the potential to be far more detrimental to victims, and the damage can be difficult to repair.

-- Consider taking a preemptive strike by freezing your credit reports. This will not impact existing credit cards and financial accounts, but will create a roadblock for thieves seeking to create fraudulent accounts using your personal information.

Above all else, hackers are all about the money. New research from cybersecurity and application delivery solutions provider Radware revealed that the top motivation behind cyberattacks is ransom, followed by insider threats, political hacktivism and competition. The biggest challenge in combating cyber ransom, Radware’s Global Application & Network Security Report 2016-2017 report noted, is that ransom is not only easy, but also every attack has its own vector, technique or angle. With hundreds of encrypting malware types available to cybercriminals today, the individuals perpetrating these malicious attacks are able to leverage various networks and applications to demonstrate their power and capabilities.

“One thing is clear: Money is the top motivator in the threat landscape today,” Carl Herberger, VP of security solutions at Radware, explained. “Attackers employ an ever-increasing number of tactics to steal valuable information, from ransom attacks that can lock up a company’s data, to DDoS attacks that act as a smoke screen for information theft, to direct brute force or injection attacks that grant direct access to internal data.

“Our report shows that most organizations are still not prepared to fend off many of the more sophisticated attacks. There is a vast market for mitigating attacks in progress and for defending against threats, both new and established, that grow in severity by the day. From our Emergency Response Team to our extensive products and services, Radware stands ready to guard organizations’ data, systems, and customers from harm,” Herberger continued. Last year saw a significant surge in the number of extortion threats, with the majority (56 percent) of the 600 organizations surveyed by Radware admitting that they have fallen victim to a cyber ransom attack and 41 percent identifying ransomware as the biggest cyber threat.