October is Cyber Security Awareness Month

As a crime writer who studied criminology in college, I’ve always had a particular interest reading and writing about white-collar crime. A few years ago, I maintained two blogs a week, one devoted solely to the wacky, bizarre, and disturbing goings on in white-collar crime capers. Needless to say, there was a lot to write about.

My first two published mysteries, Taxed to Death (now out of print) and Fatal Encryption, were about fraud and computer hacking respectively. It’s still a topic that’s dear to my heart, and as you well know, computer hacking, scams, and other forms of fraud are more prevalent than ever. Whether we know it or not, just about all of us have been hacked and invaded at one time or another.

October is Cyber Security Awareness Month, and there are plenty of things we can each do to help protect ourselves and our families. Seniors are especially vulnerable, but so are teens who are acquiring their first credit cards and paying with debit cards or through other means that were unheard of a decade ago.

One thing you can do right now is check your social media sites. I see many people on Facebook receiving hearty congratulations for their birthdays. I see frequent pictures of family members and children from folks who include all sorts of personal information that just shouldn’t be there. If you can restrain yourself from revealing too much, then do so.

When you join a social media site, you don’t have to fill out every bit of personal information about yourself. In fact, I’d advise you not to. Facebook, etc, is one of the few places where you shouldn’t be completely forthcoming about your age and birthdate, family names and so forth. You never know who’s watching and learning all about you, as if we didn’t already know this, right?

For great tips and reminders about staying safe, please visit StaySafeOnLine .