Have you frozen your credit? If not, you should do so now. It won't stop everything the bad guys can do if they steal your identity, but it can prevent the most common ways and safeguard your money.
You can freeze your credit with Equifax by visiting their website and clicking on “PLACE A SECURITY FREEZE”.
We created detailed instructions on our forum for all three major bureaus. It's free and easy to sign up, so go there now!
Phishing websites are websites that are designed to look just like legitimate websites. They trick you into entering your login details.
This:
is an example of what a phishing website might look like. It looks just like Amazon’s regular login page except for the address at the top. Phishing websites frequently have names that are very close to the legitimate website’s name, so they can catch people who make a typo.
Password managers will not automatically fill in a password on a website they don’t recognize, so if you are visiting a website that you login automatically to using your password manager, and it doesn’t this time, check the address bar – you might have accidentally visited a phishing site.
If you're not already using a password manager, listen to Episode 9 of our podcast or visit us at our forum and we can help you get started with one.
Have you ever closed a browser tab accidentally and struggled to find your way back?
Ctrl+Shift+T on Windows or Cmd+Shift+T on Mac will re-open the last closed tab.
My brother pointed this out today, and I was stoked to learn about it, so I had to share. Hopefully you find it useful also.
Did you think that private browsing mode makes your browsing private? Think again.
Private (or incognito mode) browsing mostly makes it so it doesn't store your history on your computer. Your ISP and websites you hit, including Google, can still track you.
It can still be useful, when, for example, researching a holiday you want to be a surprise to someone who shares the same computer. But you should expect that Google knows you're the one doing it.
More details here.
If you're using Signal, there are privacy settings worth looking at. (and if you're not using Signal, listen to Super Simple Security Principles episode 20, Signal: A Safe and Private Communication App).
Under Settings –> Privacy –> Phone Number, you can choose who can see that you're using Signal. The Signal default is that only people who have your phone # can see you. You can change it so that by default, nobody can see you're on Signal except people you've contacted directly.
Does your bank send you alerts when you spend more than $100 in one charge? Or online charges? International charges? Most banks (all 4 of the ones I use) will alert you when a charge occurs above a specific amount. But you have to configure it. For most credit cards, you can also enable these kinds of alerts.
Look in settings for alerts on your bank or credit card's website (or an app if you have one).
Once upon a time, it wasn't safe to open some emails.
Thankfully, those days are long past. It is now safe to open any email.
The risk comes if you download anything in the email or click on anything in the email.
Episode 16 of Super Simple Security Principles gets into this a bit more. Check it out if you haven't already.
Do you use Venmo? I was shocked to find out that, by default, anyone on the internet can see your transactions in Venmo.
If you love to share, you can set the default to just friends. Otherwise, set it to private. You can also modify all your past transactions to hide them.
Click here for instructions on how to make these changes.
I'm laughing at myself right now because of the title. Hopefully, some of you are too.
Seriously though, screenshots are invaluable when helping figure out what has gone wrong, so share them with your support team.
If you don't have a support team, sign up for our forum, and let us be yours.
Here are some links describing how to take screenshots on different devices.
When browsing on a computer, instead of clicking to start a new search, you can use Ctrl+L on Windows or Cmd+L on Mac to select the address bar so you can type your search. Over time, little things like this can save you a lot of time.