The best time to start was yesterday, the second best time is now.
Most of us handle identity theft and cybersecurity the same way we handle world peace. We see the headlines and feel upset, anxious, frustrated, and insecure. But then we think to ourselves, “What can I do?” and we go on living our lives. When it comes to world peace, we may have to do this to keep our sanity. But when it comes to protecting our identity and being secure online, there is plenty we can and should do. The problem is that most of us don’t know exactly what that is or even where to start.
The good news for or most people is that attackers are doing a “spray and pray” approach where they hit thousands or millions of people and hope for success a small percentage of the time. By educating ourselves and taking some basic precautions, we can make it hard enough that we are not worth the effort and attackers move to the next victim. The analogy in the physical world would be the bad actors running down the street trying the front door to see if it is locked. If you just lock the front door, chances are the hackers will move on until they find a neighbor who didn’t.
Continuing with the physical world analogy, consider a bank instead of a random house. There are going to be a lot of people thinking about robbing that bank, and since the payoff is so big, they can put a lot of time and resources into plotting a heist. For some of us, this might be the case. Anybody that worries about being stalked, or high-profile people like company executives, celebrities or pro athletes as examples. Just like the bank has a team, so should people in this category.
If you are in the first catgory, then this blog is for you. I am proud of my book, but it goes into more detail than most people care about. For example, the first chapter is a pretty deep discussion of how most passwords are easily hacked, but the solution ends up being to simply get a password manager. So read the blog and implement what you can. All for free (at least the information I give.) In the future, I hope to make it even easier by making a list available that you can download. The timing of that is TBD.
If however, you feel that somebody might be putting some time and energy into attacking you, then you may want help. Go over to the Contact page and send me a note.