Stay Safe Online

It's National Consumer Protection Week, and the library wants to help you learn more about how online scammers operate and how to keep yourself safe online. Consider these tips to protect your information, computer and identity.

Contact the company directly.

Phishing attacks use official-looking texts or emails to impersonate a legitimate source, such as a popular website, to convince you to provide information (i.e. logging in to a fake website with your real password or calling them providing sensitive information to "verify your account") which can be used to commit identity theft or other fraud.

Phishing often relies on panic to lower your defenses by demanding you take action to avoid some kind of penalty. When in doubt, contact the company directly through the website or known phone numbers—not the information in the email.

Keep software up to date.

Software updates can fix security issues that malware might use to access your computer. Setting your computer and other devices to update automatically can help with this.

Installing security software is also a good idea; when kept up to date, it will prevent most malware from running, clean the files off your device, warn you if you click on a link to a suspicious or known malicious website, and more.

Take time for added security measures.

It can be annoying to have one more thing to click. Still, in addition to using strong, unique passwords for all your online accounts, you should set up multi-factor authentication for apps or websites whenever possible.

By asking you to provide another piece of information to authenticate each login attempt, this extra layer of security helps ensure that only you can log in to your accounts (even if others obtain your password information). This can be a PIN, a security question, a code sent to you by text or received from an authentication app, or biometric data such as a fingerprint, retina scan or facial recognition.

Back up your data.

Keep your important data safe by making copies. Back up cloud storage to a hard drive, and vice versa.

Delete suspicious emails.

Mass messaging can be used by companies to advertise legitimate products or services, but it is also used by scammers. Since spam mail is often less relevant to our interests than direct advertising and can be used to spread malicious software ("malware") or other threats, it's best to delete suspicious messages without opening them.

So, what makes a message suspicious? Think before you click, and be on the lookout for:

• Unprofessional email titles.
  Sensationalized email subjects, multiple exclamation points and atypical use of capital letters are all red flags.
• Awkward or impersonal greetings.
  "Dear Mr. Account Holder" or similarly vague forms of address indicate that the sender doesn’t have enough of your information…yet. (Let's keep it that way.)
• Vague or missing information in the "from" field or email signature.
  Legitimate organizations will want you to know who they are; their communications should be specific and complete.
• The "To" field contains multiple random addresses.
  If the sender is mass-emailing, it is (at best) junk mail or spam.
• Bad grammar, typos, spelling errors, etc.
  Professionals use spell-checking software and don’t rush official communications. If you see sloppy writing, steer clear.
• Urgency, emotional appeals or time-sensitive threats.
  Dramatic appeals, such as warnings that your account will be closed or some other action taken without your immediate action is a sign that someone doesn't want you to think before you act.
• Messages from celebrities.
  Unfortunately, famous people don't contact members of the public out of the blue. If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.
• Links to…somewhere else.
  These may be disguised since any text can have any link attached to it, but if you hover over the link in a browser, it will show you where you're going. Be wary of links sending you to very different websites.
• Unexpected downloads.
  Be especially suspicious of downloads that attempt to start automatically. Most devices these days will ask you to confirm, but if you weren’t expecting it, do not proceed!
• Asking you to reply to "opt-out" of a service, or referring to accounts you don't have.
  Generally, you need to opt into new services on your own. Neither online businesses nor traditional banks and credit card companies set up accounts for you without your knowledge or active participation.
• Requests for personal information.
  Most organizations have policies that forbid employees from requesting personally identifiable information, and you should be wary of emails or texts that ask for it.

If you think a scammer has obtained your information, visit IdentityTheft.gov to find specific steps to take based on the information you may have lost. The more quickly you act, the better the outcome will be.