Education Articles

Protect Yourself from Unemployment Scams

The figure is staggering: Nearly 47 million Americans have filed for unemployment benefits since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic—a number greater than the combined population of 23 states. Piggybacking this crisis are scammers lined up to take advantage. According to a recent report from the Inspector General of the U.S. Labor Department,...

Friendly Warning: Tax Season Is ‘Fraud’ Season

Tax season fraud and malware campaigns have a seemingly endless number of ploys, often using flagrantly aggressive tactics, like applying threats and an extreme urgency to act or face fines, imprisonment, or legal action. Not surprisingly, a big focus in fiscal year 2021 (spanning October 1, 2020, to September 30, 2021) was again COVID-19-relate...

Stay (Financially) Safe During the Holidays

One of the many negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic is a troublesome disruption in the global supply chain. As the world economy slowly recovers, an unfortunate side effect is that consumer demand is rising, further  stressing the supply chain . Despite the supply chain challenges, the holiday shopping season didn't suffer in 2021. In fact...

This Fall, Don’t Fall: Passwords and Phishing and Romance, Oh My!

Cybersecurity Awareness Month is a fantastic time to review a few long-standing threats to the safety of your personal and financial information online. Let’s get started! The perils of repurposing passwords Passwords are now used to protect access to an unprecedented number of websites. The average person uses between 80 to 100 passwords; reusi...

Generation Z and the Minefield of Online Scams

Today's teens and young adults are popular targets for online scams A woman meets someone on a popular mobile app, and the two forge a relationship through online chat rooms. Soon, she’s transferring a few hundred dollars to help him “get by,” then a few thousand, ultimately being scammed out of more than $35,000 by a criminal suspected of fundi...

What to Do About Those Annoying Robocalls

Like any cyber virus out there, robocalls have found a way to evolve. Early on, they were easy to detect and ignore—the calls came from an area code you didn’t recognize. But the scam has become far more sophisticated with the rise of  Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP)  dialing and  call “spoofing”  (faking a phone number). It’s become...

Don’t Get Caught in a Tax Return Scam This Season

Every year during tax time, fraudsters are on the prowl trying to profit off of taxpayers. Here are some tips on how to protect your personal information and stay safe during tax season.

Be Aware of Free Trial Offers

Not exactly a news flash, but online shopping has been displacing brick-and-mortar retailers for years. In 2018, an estimated 1.8 billion people made purchases on the internet to the tune of $2.8 trillion in e-retail sales . The latter figure is projected to swell to $4.8 trillion by 2021 as retailers continue to shift resources to e-commerce an...

Swimming Clear of Phishing Scams

You’ve heard the story before: Scammer poses as a familiar business or service provider, victim is lured into providing personal information, scammer steals victim’s identity. It’s an oldie, but for scammers it’s still a goodie—it's estimated that more than a  trillion emails are sent in a year by cybercriminals. (And that's just emails!)...