Education Articles

How to Ensure Your Accounts Are Safe

Living in the digital age, it’s all too common to find out your accounts have been compromised. If it hasn’t happened to you, you likely know someone who has—whether it be Facebook, email, digital banking, or really any other online account with a login. Luckily, there are ways to mitigate the damage while jump-starting your recovery process. If...

10 Tips for Fortifying Your Passwords and Usernames

Many of us know not to include sensitive information, like our Social Security number or birthday, in our logins (and if you didn’t know, now you do!). But that’s just the most basic step you can take to keep your information safe from would-be fraudsters. Specific username and password rules can differ from website to website, but these five...

6 Ways to Stay Ahead of Scams, Fraud, and Identity Theft

It can happen to anyone, and across all levels of familiarity with technology. Older generations, often targeted by scams and identity theft, are now matched by their Gen Z counterparts, whose comfort level with technology for everyday online transactions makes them particularly vulnerable. When someone’s identity is stolen, the victim’s financi...

Popular Holiday Scams (and How to Avoid Them)

Ah, the holidays … a time for sharing, celebrating, and gift-giving (sometimes spending more than you’d planned). It’s also when scammers looking for personal information step up their game. As much as we look forward to the holidays, scammers enjoy this time of year as well. After all, it’s natural to let your security slip a little when you’re...

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

Despite all of the economic challenges over the past handful of years, holiday shopping season hasn’t suffered. Partially fueled by longer holiday seasons, sales continue to  set records for online and other non-store sales during the final three months of the year. That means a whole lot of payments via credit and debit cards and a host of...

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...